A series of summary reports from the first day of the 14th annual meeting of the Society for Urologic Oncology (SUO) has recently been made available on the UroToday web site (which is freely accessible to patients, but you do have to register to access it).
The six “Session Highlight” reports are based on a series of presentations and panel discussions and were all focused on factors affecting the use of biomarkers in the diagnosis and work-up of prostate cancer, and and how such vbiomarkers can be utilized to differentiate in a clinically valuable manner between men with more or less aggressive forms of prostate cancer so that their care can be appropriately managed. The reports reflect the opinions of highly respected researchers and clinicians on a variety of significant topics, as follows:
- Biomarkers in prostate cancer, including such factors as appropriate definitions, regulatory oversight and approval processes, statistical factors affecting their accuracy and validity, and “lessons learned” to date in the development and utility of such biomarkers
- Aids to detection of clinically significant cancer, including such newer tests as the Prostate Health Index or phi, the four-kallikrein (4K) test, and genetic susceptibility testing methods
- The use of newer tests in biopsy-negative patients who may, nonetheless, still appear to be at elevated risk for prostate cancer, including information on the PCA3 and TMPRSS2-ERG tests, the Prostate Core Mitomic Test (PCMT), and the ConfirMDX test.
- The use of newer tests in newly diagnosed, biopsy-positive patients (e.g., the OncoType DX test and the Prolaris test) to stratify risk and make decisions about treatment/monitoring
- How to appropriately define “aggressive” prostate cancer
- Factors affecting the validity of biomarkers in specific types of patient (e.g., race, Gleason score) and how to study such heterogeneity in a clinically useful fashion
These reports were all written by either Timothy Ito, MD, or Philip Abbosh, MD, of the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Over the next few years we are liable to see some dramatic shifts in our ability to classify the risks presented by clinically definable subtypes of prostate cancer than go way beyond the relatively simplistic D’Amico criteria of low-, intermediate-, and high-risk disease (and its modifications). The use of specific biomarkers in combination with carefully studied clinical and pathological data will be a key factor in the development of a more specific classification system.
Filed under: Diagnosis, Management, Risk | Tagged: biomarkers, research, SUO, utility |
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