British scientists have devised a new simple and cheap urine test which they say can accurately identify men at greater risk of developing prostate cancer, a breakthrough that could lead to early diagnosis and effective treatment for the disease.
Prostate cancer — a common malignancy in prostate gland of men’s reproductive system — affects millions worldwide every year. The PSA (prostate-specific antigen) blood test which is currently used to detect the disease is said to be not reliable.
But, the new urine test, developed by researchers from Cancer Research UK’s Cambridge Research Institute and the Institute of Cancer Research, has been hailed as a “landmark discovery” as it is twice as accurate as the current one.
The 5.50-pound test kit is expected to be used widely during surgeries by doctors in as little as four years, the Daily Mail reported.
Professor David Neal, a prostate cancer specialist at the Cambridge Research Institute, said: “This is a vital piece of research that could go a long way to find a long-awaited and much-needed reliable and easy test to identify those men most at risk of developing prostate cancer.
“If further studies show this can be used in the the clinic, this will be a landmark discovery.”
Despite its terrible toll, prostate cancer is often described as a “Cinderella cancer”, losing out in resources to higher-profile conditions such as breast cancer.
The current PSA blood test measures levels of a protein made by the prostate, and crucially is only used to diagnose the disease rather than predict its onset.
The unreliability of the PSA test also means that older men are not routinely screened for the disease. False positive and false negative results means it is wrong more often that it is right.
For developing the new test, the scientists used results of genetic studies to link low levels of microseminoprotein-beta protein (MSMB) with signs of the disease. Low levels of MSMB foretell cancerous changes in the prostate.
Detailing their work in the journal PLoS ONE, Dr Hayley Whitaker, who led the research, said that Initial studies suggest that the test is twice as accurate as the current one.
A trial on 1,200 men is under way and is expected to be finished by Christmas. Further, large-scale trials will also have to be carried out.
According to the scientists, men found to have low levels of MSMB could then be closely monitored to detect the disease, if it does indeed develop, as early as possible.
The test could also help in diagnosis by reducing the number of unnecessary biopsies, they said.
In addition, it may also help doctors more accurately distinguish between the more common, slow-growing forms of the disease from the more dangerous, faster-growing varieties.
Dr Whitaker said: “We looked in the tissue and urine of over 350 men with and without prostate cancer to find out how much MSMB they had.
“The protein is easy to detect because it is found in urine and would potentially be a very simple test to carry out on men to identify those most at risk of developing the disease.”
Dr Kate Holmes, of the Prostate Cancer Charity, said:
“Given the known limitations of the PSA blood test, finding a technique to accurately diagnose prostate cancer is the holy grail of research into the disease, which is why these results are potentially exciting.”