The researchers believe their test ‘could reduce the number of unnecessary prostate cancer biopsies by 32%,’ UEA reported
New diagnostic technologies may make it possible for men to provide a urine sample that can allow a clinical laboratory to not only accurately diagnose prostate cancer but also help determine whether it is an aggressive form of prostate cancer. Researchers in the United Kingdom (UK) recently described just such a test in an online, peer-reviewed journal.
Development of a non-invasive method of diagnosing prostate cancer would be significant for anatomic pathologists in the United States. In the US alone, approximately 248,000 men will be diagnosed with this type of cancer in 2021. Prostate biopsies represent a major proportion of case referrals to community pathology groups.
Moreover, were such a non-invasive test for prostate cancer also able to identify those individuals with fast-growing prostate cancers, that would help urologists make more informed treatment decisions.
A Disease Men More Commonly Die ‘With’ Rather than ‘From’
According to CDC statistics, most men over the age of 80 will have some form of slow-growing prostate cancer when they die. However, a percentage of men each year contract a rapidly growing aggressive form of the cancer, and until recently, diagnosing which cancer a patient was fighting often required multiple invasive prostate needle biopsies. But that may soon change.
Researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA) Norwich Medical School in the United Kingdom (UK) have developed a non-invasive urine test for prostate cancer that they say also can determine the aggressiveness of the disease. Knowing this may help physicians better assess a patient’s risk prior to ordering invasive needle biopsies, a UEA article notes.
The UEA test may also allow for self-collection of the biological sample, and if it proves accurate, the test could bring additional revenue to clinical laboratories that would perform the urine testing.
The UEA researchers published their study in the peer-reviewed open-access journal Cancers, titled, “Integration of Urinary EN2 Protein and Cell-Free RNA Data in the Development of a Multivariable Risk Model for the Detection of Prostate Cancer Prior to Biopsy.”
“In this work we develop a test that predicts whether a patient has prostate cancer and how aggressive the disease is from a urine sample. This model combines the measurement of a protein-marker called EN2 and the levels of 10 genes measured in urine and proves that integration of information from multiple, non-invasive biomarker sources has the potential to greatly improve how patients with a clinical suspicion of prostate cancer are risk-assessed prior to an invasive biopsy,” they wrote.
“While prostate cancer is responsible for a large proportion of all male cancer deaths, it is more commonly a disease men die with rather than from,” said Daniel Brewer, PhD, one of the lead researchers on this study. “Therefore, there is a desperate need for improvements in diagnosing and predicting outcomes for prostate cancer patients to minimize over-diagnosis and overtreatment whilst appropriately treating men with aggressive disease, especially if this can be done without taking an invasive biopsy.
“Invasive biopsies come at considerable economic, psychological, and societal cost to patients and healthcare systems alike,” he added. Brewer is Senior Lecturer in Cancer Bioinformatics and a group leader within the Cancer Genetics Team at UEA’s Norwich Medical School.
“Our new urine test not only shows whether a patient has prostate cancer, but it importantly shows how aggressive the disease is. This allows patients and doctors to select the correct treatment,” said Daniel Brewer, PhD (above), Senior Lecturer and Lead Researcher, UEA Norwich Medical School, in the news release. (Photo copyright: Eastern Daily Press.)
Possibility of Reducing Needle Biopsies by 32%
Called “ExoGrail,” the UEA’s new test builds on their earlier development of the Prostate Urine Risk (PUR) and ExoMeth tests. The test works by integrating two biomarkers.
- Measurements of EN2, a protein-marker, and
- Levels of gene expression of 10 genes related to prostate cancer.
The researchers tested ExoGrail on urine samples from 207 patients at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital (NNUH) who also had needle biopsy samples available.
According to the published study, the UEA ExoGrail urine test enabled:
- Results comparable to the biopsy findings.
- Identification of people with prostate cancer and people without it.
- Risk scoring that noted aggressive prostate cancer and need for biopsy.
- Potential to reduce unnecessary biopsies by 32%.
“ExoGrail resulted in accurate predictions even when serum PSA [protein-specific antigen] levels alone proved inaccurate; patients with a raised PSA but negative biopsy result possessed ExoGrail scores significantly different from both clinically benign patients and those with low-grade Gleason 6 disease, whilst still able to discriminate between more clinically significant Gleason ≥ 7 cancers,” the researchers stated in their published study.
“The adoption of ExoGrail into current clinical pathways for reducing unnecessary biopsies was considered, showing the potential for up to 32% of patients to safely forgo an invasive biopsy without incurring excessive risk,” they noted.
Prostate Cancer Patients May Soon Have Options
While more research is needed, the new UEA Norwich Medical School ExoGrail test introduces compelling non-invasive methods for diagnosing prostate cancer. Patients with findings of aggressive cancer can proceed to biopsies, while others determined to have non-aggressive forms of prostate cancer may be able to avoid more invasive tests and the associated costs and stress.
Additionally, men may soon be able to collect their own specimens without the need to visit the primary care doctor or a patient service center.
A follow-up study underway at the University of East Anglia and the NNUH involves sending 2,000 men in the UK, Europe, and Canada home testing “prostate screening boxes” to “to collect men’s urine samples at-home,” according to a UEA new release, which noted that “the Prostate Screening Box has been developed in collaboration with REAL Digital International Limited to create a kit that fits through a standard letterbox.”
“We have developed the PUR (Prostate Urine Risk) test, which looks at gene expression in urine samples and provides vital information about whether a cancer is aggressive or ‘low risk,’” said Jeremy Clark, PhD, Senior Research Associate at UEA’s Norwich Medical School.
“The Prostate Screening Box part sounds like quite a small innovation, but it means that in future the monitoring of cancer in men could be so much less stressful for them and reduce the number of expensive trips to the hospital,” he added.
Anatomic pathologists and clinical laboratory managers will want to follow the progress of these clinical studies. A non-invasive, urine-based test for prostate cancer could be a game-changer if it can detect prostate cancer with comparable accuracy to the tissue-based diagnostics that are the current standard of care in the diagnosis of prostate cancer.
—Donna Marie Pocius
Related Information:
New Prostate Cancer Urine Test Shows How Aggressive Disease Is and Could Reduce Invasive Biopsies
Tests to Diagnose and Stage Prostate Cancer
Prostate Cancer Key Statistics
UEA Researchers Develop Prostate Cancer Test That Could Reduce Biopsies
