New urine test can diagnose and offer prognosis for prostate cancer
pharmafile | July 8, 2019 | News story | Sales and Marketing | Cancer, oncology, pharma, prostate cancer, urine test
A new urine test can diagnose cases of aggressive prostate cancer more quickly than invasive biopsies.
The test can also offer prognostic information to men on active surveillance (AS) the management option for those men with localised prostate cancer in which the cancer is not treated straight away.
The researchers from the University of East Anglia, and the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital (NNUH) found that the urine test called Prostate Urine Risk (PUR) is able to accurately diagnose prostate cancers and predict whether patients will need treatment within the next five years.
It is hope that the test could help large numbers of men avoid initial biopsies and follow up tests such as blood tests, physical examinations, digital rectal examinations (DRE), MRI scans and biopsies.
Lead author Shea Connell from UEA’s Norwich Medical School, said: “Prostate cancer is more commonly a disease men die with rather than from. Unfortunately, we currently lack the ability to tell which men diagnosed with prostate cancer will need radical treatment and which men will not.”
Dr Jeremy Clark from UEA, added: “This research shows that our urine test could be used to not only diagnose prostate cancer without the need for an invasive needle biopsy but to identify a patient’s level of risk. This means that we could predict whether or not prostate cancer patients already on active surveillance would require treatment.”
“If this test was to be used in the clinic, large numbers of men could avoid an unnecessary initial biopsy and the repeated, invasive follow-up of men with low-risk disease could be drastically reduced.”
Louis Goss
Related Content
Pharma sees climate disruption as growing supply-chain risk
Nine in ten pharmaceutical companies across the UK and G7 countries expect climate-related disruption to …
AI in pharma: From lab development to patient impact
In the decade to 2025, AI use in vaccine development has increased markedly but is …
BMS’ Opdivo/Yervoy combination accepted by Scottish Medicines Consortium for colorectal cancer
Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) has announced that its Opdivo (nivolumab) has been accepted, in combination …
