Apr. 9, 2007 The amount of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in a
man's bloodstream at the time of his prostate cancer diagnosis
or its rate of change over the course of the disease does not
adequately predict lethal prostate cancer, according to a study
in the April 4 Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Although men with untreated localized prostate cancer have high
long-term survival rates, many patients undergo treatment
anyway. In order to avoid unnecessary treatment, researchers
want to identify methods to determine which patients will
develop lethal prostate cancer. The rate of increase of PSA--a
protein produced by the prostate--before prostate cancer
treatment has been associated with the patient's prognosis,
which suggests that early measurements of PSA may predict the
behavior of the tumor. To assess the accuracy of using PSA to
predict prostate cancer outcome, Katja Fall, M.D., Ph.D., of the
Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, and colleagues analyzed the
rate of change of PSA levels in 267 men f