Blood test for prostate ‘ends misery of biopsies’

A BLOOD test which detects aggressive prostate cancer could prevent thousands of men having painful, unnecessary biopsies.

The simple test, which diagnosed almost 93 per cent of men with the disease correctly in a trial, could be available on the NHS within three to five years.

Currently men suspected of having the disease are given a blood test to look for raised levels of a protein called PSA. In more than half of cases the level is up for another reason, such as an enlarged prostate. But these men still have a follow-up biopsy – where tissue is removed – unnecessarily, which risks bleeding and infection. In 3 per cent of cases the procedure can lead to life-threatening sepsis.

The new test, which picks up cancer cells that have shed into the blood, was trialled on 155 men with prostate cancer and 98 with high PSA levels who had not yet been given a biopsy.

Researchers found, in combination with the PSA test, it correctly identified 86 per cent with prostate cancer. When 12 genes linked to prostate cancer were also searched for, the accuracy hit almost 93 per cent. Study author Professor Yong- Jie Lu, of Queen Mary University of London, said: ‘The current prostate cancer test often leads to unnecessary, invasive biopsies and overdiagnosis and over-treatment of many men, causing significant harm to patients and a waste of valuable healthcare resources...

‘Testing for circulating tumour cells is efficient, non-invasive and potentially accurate.’

The PSA test currently used in GP surgeries is unreliable, leading scientists to look for other methods, from MRI scans to blood tests, to more accurately diagnose patients.

There are 47,700 new cases of prostate cancer a year in the UK – around 130 a day. The new test is able to identify men whose prostate cancer is aggressive and likely to spread to other parts of the body.

This means men whose cancer is likely to stay in their prostate, and unlikely to kill them, can be spared surgery and chemotherapy.

The study, published in the Journal of Urology, follows a Daily Mail campaign to improve prostate cancer diagnosis, which trails years behind diseases such as breast cancer.

Mark Emberton, of University College London, who was not involved in the research, said: ‘This is moving in the right direction towards a biopsy-free world. It is clear that MRI scans will still be required to give us the location and volume of a tumour, but this could be a step forward to help men escape the pain of unnecessary biopsies.’