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HEALTHY CONSUMER
New Diagnostic Tools for Prostate Cancer
By RONI CARYN RABIN
The holy grail test for prostate cancer that scientists are seeking is a “liquid biopsy” — a minimally invasive test that can be performed on blood or urine and is capable of detecting “the prostate cancers that kill and need to be treated, versus those that don’t kill,” said Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society.
Researchers, often working in collaboration with industry, are inching closer to this goal. The company MDxHealth plans to introduce a noninvasive urine-based molecular test called SelectMDx in the United States early next year. The test, which is already available outside the country, measures messenger RNA levels of biomarkers associated with an increased probability of aggressive disease. It is intended to help determine whether an initial prostate biopsy is needed — gauging not just the likelihood of detecting cancer upon biopsy, but the probability of high-grade versus a low-grade tumor.
Dr. Philip Ginsburg, executive vice president and chief medical officer of MDxHealth, based in Irvine, Calif., said the tests were designed to be prognostic rather than diagnostic.
“At the end of the day, our test, and most other tests, should be seen as aids to patient management,” he said, “and not regarded as a sine qua non.”