To print: Select File and then Print from your browser's menu --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Title: Blood Test Could Aid in Predicting Which Prostate Tumours Will Metastasise URL: http://www.pslgroup.com/dg/21DFEE.htm Doctor's Guide March 7, 2008
NEW YORK -- March 7, 2008 -- Researchers report finding a new blood biomarker that enables close to 98% accuracy in predicting the spread of prostate cancer to regional lymph nodes. Their study is published in the March 1 issue of Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. The new blood test measures levels of endoglin, a plasma biomarker that has been previously shown to predict the spread of colon and breast cancer. In this study, researchers concluded for the first time that endoglin can help predict whether a patient's prostate cancer will spread beyond the solid tumour site into their lymph nodes. "For prostate cancer, we have hit the limit of our ability to classify risk in these patients before initial surgery. We currently use prostate-specific antigen, Gleason grade, and a rectal exam, but the predictive value of those 3 tests is inadequate for predicting what cancers will spread. Conventional imaging modalities used for clinical staging in prostate cancer are inadequate to detect small but clinically significant lymph node metastases," said study author Shahrokh F. Shariat, MD, Chief Urology Resident, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas. "Although it is recognized that pelvic lymphadenectomy can provide important staging and prognostic information, it is still not clear in whom this procedure should be done. Doing pelvic lymphadenectomy on all patients is not universally practised, as this procedure could be time-consuming and is not without morbidity. As such, it would be of tremendous benefit to have an accurate blood marker that identifies patients in whom pelvic lymphadenectomy should be done," said co-author Claus G. Roehrborn, MD, Professor and Chairman of Urology at UT Southwestern. Dr. Shariat and colleagues observed 425 patients who had undergone surgery to remove both their prostate and associated pelvic lymph nodes. Researchers measured the levels of plasma endoglin using a commercially available blood test. Higher plasma endoglin levels were associated with an increased risk of cancer spreading to the lymph nodes. Each 1-ng/mL increase of plasma endoglin increased the risk for cancer spread into the lymph nodes by 17%. When researchers added endoglin levels to their usual methods of prediction, the accuracy improved from 89.4% without endoglin to 97.8% with endoglin. Blood levels of endoglin may allow doctors to predict the risk of cancer spreading at an earlier stage and with higher accuracy than currently available methods. "Despite strides in the management of prostate cancer, approximately 25% to 30% fail primary curative treatments such as radical prostatectomy and radiotherapy," Dr. Shariat said. "This is often due to spread of cancer cells beyond the original tumour site. Use of plasma endoglin could help identify patients at risk for lymph nodes metastasis who should undergo pelvic lymphadenectomy. In addition, it may spare patients at low risk of lymph node metastasis the potential morbidity of an unnecessary lymphadenectomy." The authors stressed that some limitations of this study should be noted. The retrospective design, standard lymph node sampling, and the small number of events indicate a need for data from multicentre prospective studies before the clinical use of endoglin as a marker for predicting lymph node metastasis. "Ultimately endoglin will need to be combined with 3 of 4 other markers to predict risk with greater certainty. The problem with biomarkers is that there is a tremendous variability among patients, but this moves us forward from what we were able to do with imaging and with our other commonly used methods," Dr. Shariat said. This study was funded through a grant from the National Institutes of Health. SOURCE: Clinical Cancer Research, March 1, 2008 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright © 1999 P\S\L Consulting Group Inc. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of P\S\L content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of P\S\L. P\S\L shall not be liable for any errors, omissions or delays in this content or any other content on its sites, newsletters or other publications, nor for any decisions or actions taken in reliance on such content. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This news story was printed from *Doctor's Guide to the Internet* located at http://www.docguide.com --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Return to News Story Page This site is maintained by webmaster@pslgroup.com Please contact us with any comments, problems or bugs. All contents Copyright (c) 1998 P\S\L Consulting Group Inc. All rights reserved.