New research from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and the University International Institute for Nanotechnology shows that an ultrasensitive PSA test using nanoparticle-based technology (VeriSens™ PSA, Nanosphere, Inc., research-use-only) may be able to definitively predict after surgery if the cancer is cured long term or if it will recur.
Current tests that measure the level of protein called PSA (prostate-specific antigen), which signals the presence of cancer, often detect no PSA, only to have cancer return in up to 40 percent of the cases.
The new ultrasensitive PSA test, which is based upon assays invented at Northwestern in the laboratories of co-principal investigator Chad A. Mirkin, is 300 times more sensitive than currently available commercial tests and can detect a very low level of PSA that indicates the cancer has spread beyond the prostate. The test also may pick up cancer recurrence at a much earlier stage, when secondary treatment is most effective for a patient’s survival.
“This test may provide early and more accurate answers,” said co-principal investigator C. Shad Thaxton, M.D., an assistant professor of urology at Feinberg and a member of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwester…
Read more New PSA test predicts if prostate cancer will return