NEW TEST FOR PROSTATE CANCER

New studies of a blood protein recently identified at Johns Hopkins, early prostate cancer antigen-2 (EPCA-2), may change the way men are screened for prostate cancer — a disease that kills over 27,000 men every year.

Current standards of screening and testing for prostate cancer focus on the blood protein prostate-specific antigen (PSA) along with a digital rectal examination. Men who have more than 2.5 nanograms per milliliter of PSA are considered at risk for prostate cancer.

However, PSA testing often erroneously highlights noncancerous conditions (false positives) and can miss some cases of prostate cancer (false negatives), according to Robert H. Getzenberg, Ph.D., professor of urology and director of research at the James Buchanan Brady Urological Institute at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Dr. Getzenberg, lead author of the study, says that of the entire population of men in the United States who have been tested for PSA, an estimated 25 million have elevated PSA levels, yet a biopsy of the prostate that did not reveal any prostate cancer. Conversely, roughly 15 percent of men with prostate cancer go undetected because their PSA levels are below the cutoff level, according to Getzenberg.

In a study published in the April 2007 issue of the journal Urology, Getzenberg and a team of Hopkins researchers introduce evidence in support of EPCA-2 testing as a more accurate way to identify prostate cancer within the prostate.