A new urine test detects prostate cancer in need of treatment more accurately than standard blood tests and reduces unnecessary biopsies, researchers reported on Thursday in JAMA Oncology.
Because some prostate cancers do not require treatment and can be safely monitored, the test was developed to find the higher-grade, “clinically significant” cancers in need of early detection and treatment.
The test, MyProstateScore 2.0 (MPS2) from Ann Arbor, Michigan-based LynxDx, measures 18 genes associated with prostate cancer.
The study looked at 743 men with blood tests showing elevated prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels, which can indicate the presence of cancer.
The use of MPS2 would have avoided 35% to 42% of unnecessary biopsies – invasive tests that proved negative or found low-grade cancers not requiring treatment – without a decrease in diagnoses of clinically significant cancer, the researchers reported.
By comparison, existing biomarker tests could have avoided only 15% to 30% of unnecessary biopsies, they said.
The improvement in accuracy was even more pronounced in men with a history of a previous negative biopsy, according to the report.
However, only 13% of trial participants were African American. Because prostate cancer is more common in Black men, the researchers are conducting further trials in more racially diverse populations.
