text: Prostatic acid phosphatase is an enyme that is sometimes secreted by the prostrate, usually when the gland is under pressure.  It used to be used as a marker to indicate the possibility of prostate cancer, however with the advent of new and more specific testing, Prostatic Specific Antigen, it is no longer used.  The thruth is that it was a very nonspecific test and only indicated that the prostate gland was under some sort of pressure.  True a prostatic tumor could cause this pressure but so could tumors or other types of masses actually affecting nearby organs such as the adrenals if they grew large enough to press on the prostate.  In short, clinically there is little or no significance to prostatic acid phosphatase.