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Nanotechnology-enabled PSA assay may be useful in stratifying patients post-prostatectomy
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A nanotechnology-enabled PSA test may help to stratify patients post-prostatectomy according to their risk for recurrence and, subsequently, may help to quantify response to adjuvant therapy, according to study findings presented by William J. Catalona, MD, professor of urology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago.
Using a nanotechnology-enabled PSA test (Verisens PSA, Nanosphere) that uses gold nanoparticles to which PSA antibodies have been affixed, researchers analyzed 188 specimens from more than 400 patients previously treated with radical prostatectomy with PSA less than 0.1 ng/mL (typically considered an undetectable PSA level). The researchers compared initial values between men with and without clinical prostate cancer recurrence.
Additionally, they compared the new PSA test values in patients with favorable tumor pathology with those with adverse pathology findings and with those who received adjuvant radiation treatment following radical prostatectomy.
Patients free from recurrence had initial values significantly lower than those who subsequently developed tumor recurrence. Patients with favorable tumor characteristics had lower PSA values (5.8 pg/mL) than those with unfavorable characteristics (10.1 pg/mL; P=.016).
At initial measurement, patients with unfavorable pathology who received adjuvant radiation therapy had the lowest mean PSA values compared with all groups (P<.001), suggesting that adjuvant radiation eliminated residual cancer and may reduce normal physiologic PSA production from the periurethral glands that are known to produce small amounts of PSA.
The nanotechnology-enabled PSA test could potentially be used as a post-radical prostatectomy PSA test to assess patient risk for tumor recurrence and response to adjuvant therapy, according to the researchers.
“This assay may provide a better postoperative test for patients who had radical prostatectomy because they ultimately will require salvage radiation therapy, and it may allow them to have this therapy earlier and the ultimate cure rate may be greater,” Catalona said during a press conference.
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