Prostate cancers: growth factor may show which will spread
6 June 2001
Researchers at Houston’s Baylor College of Medicine have discovered that higher levels of a growth factor can indicate which men diagnosed with prostate cancer are likely to need more aggressive treatment as their cancer is more likely to spread.
The discovery is important because prostate cancer is more easily treated when it is confined to the prostate, but is much more difficult to control after it spreads.
Dr Kevin Slawin, Associate Professor of Urology and Director of the Baylor Prostate Centre, and his team analysed blood samples from 120 patients who underwent prostate removal for localised cancer at The Methodist Hospital.
Levels of the growth factor, TGF-beta, were measured before surgery and at intervals after surgery. The blood samples taken were then compared with those of healthy men and men whose cancerous cells had already spread.
‘This marker, measured through a simple blood test, indicates at a very early stage which patients may have prostate cancer that has already begun to spread to other areas of the body,’ said Dr Slawin. ‘It can give us an early warning for who will need more aggressive therapy.’
The findings of the research were published in the June 1 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Screening for prostate cancer with a prostate-specific antigen blood test, or PSA test, has become widespread in the USA in the past 10 years. But while the PSA test has had the enormous benefit of allowing the earlier detection of prostate cancer, it does not predict cancer progression, while the TGF-beta levels did in the study.
‘The PSA test is not as effective at predicting the aggressive behaviour of prostate cancer, especially when the PSA is low’, explained Dr Slawin.
‘What’s most important in managing patients with prostate cancer is both an early diagnosis and the ability to determine which patients have more aggressive forms of cancer, those likely to recur and spread.’
Further research will be conducted to establish more useful indicators of TGF-beta levels in the prediction of prostate cancer progression.
Last Reviewed: 07 June 2001
