A new means of detection of prostate cancer could arise as an alternative to the PSA test, which for a long time has been the frontline option.
Using automatic learning, an artificial intelligence form, Swedish researchers analyzed urine samples of more than 2,000 men with prostate cancer, together with a control group.
They determined that the simple and non -invasive urine test was capable of detecting prostate cancer biomarkers with a high degree of precision, and could also determine the degree (stage) of the disease.
The results were published in the Cancer Research magazine.
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“Prostate cancer can be effectively identified by the analysis of the expression of candidate biomarkers in the urine,” confirmed principal author Martin Smelik of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, who spoke with Fox News Digital about the findings.
“This approach surpasses current blood tests based on PSA, but at the same time it maintains the advantages of not being invasive, painless and relatively cheap.”
The researchers were surprised by the “heterogeneity of tumors”, which refers to “the differences between the tumors of the same type in different patients, the differences between cancer cells within a single tumor or differences between a primary (original) tumor and a secondary tumor,” according to the National Cancer Institute.
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“One of the main challenges of the study was to overcome this and identify biomarkers that were specific to prostate cancer, but also expressed themselves in all kinds of patients,” said Smelik.
Dr. Timothy Showalter, a Health grape radiation oncologist in Virginia and Medical Director of Arterra, did not participate in the study, but commented on the findings.
“This study highlights the power of automatic learning applied to patient data to identify the advances that can help us diagnose cancer before, when our treatments are more effective,” Digital Fox told Fox News.
“The detection of prostate cancer has not seen a transformative advance in decades, and current approaches still depend on PSA’s blood analysis, which is known to have low specificity for clinically significant cancers.”
The existing PSA test works by monitoring the specific prostate antigen levels in the blood.
It can be used to detect prostate cancer or monitor the progression of the disease, but some risks and limitations have been observed.
Matthew C. Abramowitz, MD, co -chair and clinical protagonist of the disease group of the genitourinary malignancy in the Sylvester Integral Cancer Center in Miami, Florida, echoed the need for alternatives to the PSA test.
“While PSA is an incredibly sensitive tool for prostate -related problems, it is not specific to prostate cancer,” said AbramoWitz, who did not participate in the study, Fox News Digital.
“The techniques proposed in the current study suggest the promise of identifying specific cancer markers in the urine, minimizing some of the specificity concerns associated with the PSA.”
While the PSA has the advantage of simplicity, speed and reasonable cost, determining the meaning behind any abnormal finding often requires more evidence, such as magnetic resonances and biopsies, the doctor said.
False positives are also common with the PSA test, which occurs in approximately 6% to 7% of cases.
“Only about 25% of men who have a biopsy due to a high level of PSA have prostate cancer,” says NIH.
The study had some limitations, mainly the low number of samples.
“The urine prostate cancer prediction model was carried out in a small set of data and seems to be largely an analysis of European men, who can limit their applicability to other populations of high -risk prostate cancer,” AbramoWitz said.
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The test could also have a significant increase in costs due to the specialized equipment necessary to perform the analysis, he added.
The researchers recognized the need for larger studies to validate the findings and potentially include other cancers.
“While this study focused specifically on prostate cancer, we believe that some of the methods could also be generalized to other types of cancer, which we would like to try in our future studies,” said Smelik.
The final objective, according to researchers, is to achieve more efficient detection programs in the coming years, which can help prevent and treat prostate cancer.
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Showalter agreed, adding: “This work can pave the way for more specific detection methods that improve our ability to detect high degree cancers before progress or metastasis, ultimately improving healing rates and reducing morbidity related to treatment.”
