Michigan Center for Translational Pathology, Department of Pathology, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
More than 1,000,000 men undergo prostate biopsy each year in the United States, most for "elevated" serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA). Given the lack of specificity and unclear mortality benefit of PSA testing, methods to individualize management of elevated PSA are needed. Greater than 50% of PSA-screened prostate cancers harbor fusions between the transmembrane protease, serine 2 (TMPRSS2) and v-ets erythroblastosis virus E26 oncogene homolog (avian) (ERG) genes. Here, we report a clinical-grade, transcription-mediated amplification assay to risk stratify and detect prostate cancer noninvasively in urine. The TMPRSS2:ERG fusion transcript was quantitatively measured in prospectively collected whole urine from 1312 men at multiple centers. Urine TMPRSS2:ERG was associated with indicators of clinically significant cancer at biopsy and prostatectomy, including tumor size, high Gleason score at prostatectomy, and upgrading of Gleason grade at prostatectomy. TMPRSS2:ERG, in combination with urine prostate cancer antigen 3 (PCA3), improved the performance of the multivariate Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial risk calculator in predicting cancer on biopsy. In the biopsy cohorts, men in the highest and lowest of three TMPRSS2:ERG+PCA3 score groups had markedly different rates of cancer, clinically significant cancer by Epstein criteria, and high-grade cancer on biopsy. Our results demonstrate that urine TMPRSS2:ERG, in combination with urine PCA3, enhances the utility of serum PSA for predicting prostate cancer risk and clinically relevant cancer on biopsy.
Written by:
Tomlins SA, Aubin SM, Siddiqui J, Lonigro RJ, Sefton-Miller L, Miick S, Williamsen S, Hodge P, Meinke J, Blase A, Penabella Y, Day JR, Varambally R, Han B, Wood D, Wang L, Sanda MG, Rubin MA, Rhodes DR, Hollenbeck B, Sakamoto K, Silberstein JL, Fradet Y, Amberson JB, Meyers S, Palanisamy N, Rittenhouse H, Wei JT, Groskopf J, Chinnaiyan AM. Are you the author?
Reference: Sci Transl Med. 2011 Aug 3;3(94):94ra72.
doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.3001970
PubMed Abstract
PMID: 21813756
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