Test that predicts prostate cancer: UK scientists' landmark discovery is cheap, accurate - and offers hope to thousands



The first reliable test of whether men are at a high risk of prostate cancer has been developed by British scientists.

The breakthrough raises the prospect of millions being screened for the disease in the same way as women are for breast cancer. An accurate test for prostate cancer is the ‘holy grail’ of research into the disease – but has eluded scientists.



The test has so far proven to be twice as precise as the current method. It focuses on urine rather than blood, meaning it is cheaper and also has the advantage of dispensing with needles.

Deadly disease: Microscopic image of prostate cancer cells. The new test is said to be twice as precise in detecting the cancer

The £5.50 kit could be in widespread use in GPs’ surgeries in as little as four years.



Prostate is the most common cancer in British men, affecting 35,000 a year and killing more than 10,000.



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 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.



Three in four men with a raised levels of the prostate specific antigen protein are found not to have any cancerous cells when they undergo a biopsy, while one in five with prostate cancer has normal PSA readings.

Surgery: Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in British men, affecting 35,000 a year

As a result, many are subjected to the worry of unnecessary tests, while in other cases, fledgling cancers are missed until they have spread to other parts of the body and are much harder to treat.



In developing the new test, scientists from the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research Institute and the Institute of Cancer Research used results of genetic studies to link low levels of the microseminoprotein-beta protein (MSMB) with signs of the disease.



Low levels of MSMB foretell cancerous changes in the prostate, the journal PLoS ONE reported yesterday.



Researcher Dr Hayley Whitaker said that Initial studies suggest that the test is twice as accurate as the current one.



And at around £5.50 a kit, it is two-thirds of the price. It would be taken at a GP’s surgery and the results would be back within hours.



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. Men found to have low levels of MSMB could then be closely monitored, with the aim of detecting the disease, if it does indeed develop, as early as possible.

Hope: A CT scan image of the abdomen showing metastatic lesions of prostate cancer. Scientists hope the new test will offer hope to thousands of men

The test could also help in diagnosis by reducing the number of unnecessary biopsies.

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, the study’s lead author, 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.



‘However, further research is needed to determine how effective the detection of MSMB in the urine is for predicting the risk of, and potentially even diagnosing, prostate cancer.’



Prostate cancer receives a fraction of the funding and attention given to breast cancer.



Around £40million a year is ploughed into breast cancer research – four times the funding for prostate cancer studies.



And the NHS spends £75million annually on the national breast cancer screening programme for women.



No such programme exists for prostate cancer.



The technique is one of several potential successors to the PSA test being developed around the world.



Scientists at Leicester University and Durham University are among those working on alternative methods.

