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Whats The Purpose Of A Transrectal Ultrasound
A transrectal ultrasound is a procedure that produces an image of the prostate. Its usually ordered after an abnormal PSA and DRE. For the test, a small probe is inserted into the rectum. The probe then uses sound waves to produce a picture on a computer screen.
The test is uncomfortable, but not painful. It can be done in your doctors office or on an outpatient basis in about 10 minutes. It can help estimate the size of the prostate and spot abnormalities that may indicate cancer. However, a TRUS cant confirm the diagnosis of prostate cancer.
A TRUS can also be used to guide a biopsy.
What If My Test Results Are Abnormal
If the results of early detection tests like the PSA test or the digital rectal exam suggest that you might have prostate cancer, your doctor will conduct further testing. The PSA may be repeated, or you may be sent to a specialist for more tests such as a transrectal ultrasound and a prostate biopsy.
In a prostate biopsy, a tissue sample is taken from your prostate. Cancer can only be diagnosed with a tissue sample.
In addition to a PSA test, DRE , and a biopsy, research has yielded additional tests that can detect if cancer is present, and if so, how aggressive that cancer might be:
- Phi
- The Prostate Health Index combines three blood tests that give a more accurate Phi Score, which gives accurate information based on a high PSA to better determine the probability of finding cancer during a biopsy.
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Why Replace The Psa Test
The prostate-specific antigen test is a blood test that doctors use as a screen for prostate cancer. If the PSA test results are âelevated,â your doctor may recommend a prostate biopsy to better understand if you have cancer or not. There is no standard cut-point to define an âelevatedâ PSA result. The AUA guidelines state that varying protocols have been used, including PSA thresholds as low as 3.0 ng/mL and as high as 10 ng/mL. The National Comprehensive Cancer Network recommends a PSA test at least every 6 months, digital rectal exams every year, and a repeat biopsy within 18 months of diagnosis.
The Highly Unreliable Psa
Although marketed as potentially life-saving, the PSA blood test is associated with a very high false positive rate leads to the detection of mainly non-lethal diseases is NOT cancer-specific its limits of normal are artificial is commonly NOT the same result on repeat studies as it fluctuates normally can be artificially raised or lowered by several processes without a cancer being present often rises with age as the prostate grows is normally high with big prostates and, MOST IMPORTANTLY, commonly fails to indicate the 15 per cent or so of potentially lethal high-grade prostate cancers with significant amounts of pattern 4 and or, 5 disease as these cancers often make little or no PSA. Furthermore, should an elevated PSA lead to a significant prostate cancer being detected, the elevated PSA is commonly caused by the enlarged benign portion of the prostate and NOT the cancer.
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Sample Collection And Oligofish Procedure
Patients undergoing prostate cancer surveillance by scheduled DRE with pressure and biopsy were recruited for the study. The study protocol was approved by the Western Independent Review Board. All subjects were informed of the procedures and risks of the study and provided informed consent.
Once the slides were scored, they were washed in 2× SSC 0.1% sodium dodecyl sulfate to remove coverslips and Antifade and denatured again for 5 minutes to strip the probes. Slides were then hybridized with the second probe panel for the detection of chromosomes 7, 16, 18, and 20. Five hundred cells were scored for each sample.
Noninvasive Test Improves Detection Of Aggressive Prostate Cancer
by Denise Heady, University of California, Los Angeles
A team of researchers from UCLA and the University of Toronto have identified a new biomarker found in urine that can help detect aggressive prostate cancer, potentially saving hundreds of thousands of men each year from undergoing unnecessary surgeries and radiotherapy treatments.
Prostate cancer can be easy to diagnose, but classifying patients into risk groups has been challenging. Current tools, which include PSA tests and biopsies, have high error rates and can cause severe health complications such as life-threatening infections. Testing for biomarkers in urine is noninvasive and accurately helps to distinguish slow growing cancers from potentially life-threatening ones.
Under current screening tools, about 25% to 40% of men are diagnosed with clinically insignificant disease, meaning the prostate cancer is slow growing and would most likely not have any significant damaging health effects. Yet, these men often still get treated, which leads to major costs for both the individual and the health care system. An additional 20% to 35% of men with prostate cancer diagnoses don’t get enough treatment, and often suffer relapse of the disease.
“We currently do not have accurate biomarkers to help determine the aggressiveness of prostate cancer that are not invasive,” said Paul Boutros, director of cancer data science for the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer and senior author of the study.
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Nutrition And Lifestyle Changes
Many studies have looked at the possible benefits of specific nutrients in helping to treat prostate cancer, although so far none have shown a clear benefit. Some compounds being studied include extracts from pomegranate, green tea, broccoli, turmeric, flaxseed, and soy.
One study has found that men who choose not to have treatment for their localized prostate cancer may be able to slow its growth with intensive lifestyle changes. The men in the study ate a vegan diet and exercised frequently. They also took part in support groups and yoga. After one year the men saw, on average, a slight drop in their PSA level. It isnt known if this effect will last since the report only followed the men for 1 year. The regimen may also be hard for some men to follow.
It’s important for men thinking about taking any type of nutritional supplement to talk to their health care team first. They can help you decide which ones you can use safely while avoiding those that might be harmful.
Noninvasive Prostate Cancer Mdx Test Enters Validation Phase After Initial Results Published In Jco
NEW YORK Publishing a study last month in the Journal of Clinical Oncology‘s Precision Oncology edition, members of an international team have laid the groundwork for a new epigenetic assay to help clinicians assess the risk of prostate cancer using a urine sample an advancement that could help patients avoid unnecessary biopsies and other follow-up procedures.
The study, which appeared online Jan. 14, described the team’s Epicapture assay, which detects aberrant methylation in six prostate cancer-associated genes via PCR.
Investigators reported that the test achieved area under the receiver operating characteristic curves of 0.64, 0.86, and 0.83 for detecting all prostate cancer, only high-grade cancers, and high-risk cancers, respectively. Although the sensitivity for overall cancer doesn’t improve much on currently used prostate specific antigen tests, the performance for these different clinical categorizations of high-risk tumors was superior to PSA.
Antoinette Perry, assistant professor in genetics and cell biology at University College Dublin, and a co-author of the study in JCO, said in an interview that she and her colleagues are now working on clinically validating the test to prepare for potential clinical use, and they are looking at ways to make the assay more easy to commercialize and more applicable to wide-scale prostate cancer screening.
“Applying delivered a 79 percent improvement over the tumor specificity of PSA,” the authors wrote.
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Presence Of Prostate Cells In Urine Samples
Urine samples were successfully collected after DRE with pressure. When 500 cells were scored and classified as prostatic or not according to their morphology, an average of 65%±9.1% prostatic cells was found the range was 40.0%83%. Urine samples collected without DRE with pressure were found to contain almost no prostatic epithelial cells , demonstrating that DRE with pressure is crucial for performing the test.
Testing For Prostate Cancer Micheck Prostate: Quick Non
MiCheck® Prostate is a blood test that uses our patented algorithm together with other biomarkers to estimate the risk of a patient having aggressive prostate cancer.
MiCheck® Prostate is designed to assist urologists in making the decision to recommend a patient for a biopsy or to recommend some form of active surveillance monitoring.
The problem in prostate cancer diagnosis
The PSA test is commonly used to detect prostate cancer however elevated PSA levels can be caused by factors other than prostate cancer.
Six men in ten with elevated PSA are needlessly subjected to an unnecessary prostate biopsy.
Prostate biopsies are invasive, unpleasant and sometimes hazardous . This can make a man with elevated PSA reluctant to undergo a potentially unnecessary procedure. Additionally, prostate biopsies are expensive.
The estimated over-diagnosis using PSA for population screening in the USA is 23-29% for Caucasian men and 35-44% for African-American men.
The solution for prostate cancer diagnosis is MiCheck® Prostate
MiCheck® Prostate can assist urologists in making the decision to refer a patient to biopsy by estimating the risk of the patient having aggressive prostate cancer. MiCheck® Prostate is a simple blood test that provides an answer to the physician on the patients cancer risk within 48 hours.
Why is MiCheck® Prostate the missing step in prostate cancer diagnosis?
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What If I Am Diagnosed With Prostate Cancer
Many people have been where you are standing. Dont lose hope. More than 2.9 million American men have been diagnosed with prostate cancer and are alive today.
The first thing you should consider doing is to find out about the specifics of your cancer. You should know your stage and grade .
From there you can find out what treatment options you want to pursue, if any. Talk to your doctors. Choose a healthcare team of different specialists, or consult a second opinion. You can also do your own research, or talk to men who have been in your position. Many of our advocates are patients and survivors hear their stories at the video library. Or head to the rest of our website to start some research.
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Should You Know Your Psa Level
Instead of a national screening programme, there is an informed choice programme, called prostate cancer risk management, for healthy men aged 50 or over who ask their GP about PSA testing. It aims to give men good information on the pros and cons of a PSA test.
If you’re a man aged 50 or over and decide to have your PSA levels tested after talking to your GP, they can arrange for it to be carried out free on the NHS.
If results show you have a raised level of PSA, your GP may suggest further tests.
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New Blood Test For Prostate Cancer Is Highly
by Queen Mary, University of London
A new and simple blood test has been found to efficiently and accurately detect the presence of aggressive prostate cancer, according to research by Queen Mary University of London.
In combination with the current prostate specific antigen test, the new test could help men avoid unnecessary and invasive biopsies, over-diagnosis and over-treatment.
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in Western men, with 1.3 million new cases being diagnosed each year worldwide. It is currently detected using a blood test that measures PSA levels. Although it provides early diagnosis, the PSA blood test has a low specificity with about 75 percent of all PSA positive results ending up with negative biopsies that do not find cancer.
When a high PSA level in the blood is detected, the patient undergoes a tissue biopsy of the prostate gland, which is invasive and carries a significant risk of bleeding and infection. On biopsy, the majority of patients with elevated PSA levels are found not to have cancer.
Additionally, most diagnosed early-stage prostate cancers are not fatal if left untreated. The current practice of the combined PSA test and biopsy for prostate cancer therefore results in unnecessary biopsies and over-diagnosis and overtreatment of many men.
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Is There Further Research On This Topic Planned And If So What Will Its Focus Be
There’s a tremendous amount of research going on. There’s several steps to this. One is further validation, so there’s an ongoing study that ultimately will involve 4000 patients having a biopsy to really nail down with a high level of confidence, the sensitivity and specificity for the biopsy outcome. We’re also launching a study of the performance of the assay as a dynamic assay, meaning in men on surveillance, how does the assay perform over time? Does it identify those men who eventually have grade progression to higher grade cancer? And so, all of those are ongoing at the moment, and essentially, we are waiting for FDA approval. We think that will be forthcoming in the fairly near future, but of course, we can’t predict that with certainty.
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Further Tests For Prostate Cancer
If results of the PSA test or the DRE are abnormal, a urologist will likely recommend a biopsy, where small samples of tissue are removed from the prostate and examined.
If cancer is diagnosed, other tests may be used to check the progression of the cancer, including:
- magnetic resonance imaging scan of the prostate – often done before a biopsy
- bone scan – to check whether or not cancer cells have spread to the bones
- computed tomography scan – a specialised x-ray
- pelvic lymph node dissection – a nearby lymph node is removed and examined to check whether or not cancer cells have entered the lymphatic system .
Psa Testing Is Bad Health Advice
The PSA test and its 78 percent false positive rate the DRE prostate exam and its coin-toss accuracy and, the risky 12-core, ultrasound-guided prostate needle biopsy sampling blindly and randomly ONLY some 0.1 0.3 percent of the prostate, are all highly unreliable. Clearly, the PSA test cannot be considered the gold standard and, PSA-based screening for prostate cancer is very bad health advice. A concern that has been echoed by the USPSTF .
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The Rot In The Psa Story
The PSA was discovered by Ablin in 1970. Using transcripts of the minutes recorded during the FDA reviews , Ablin and Piana detailed a very misguided FDA approval process for the PSA. In fact, after this approval, the highly unreliable PSA was simply hijacked by the profiteering Prostate Cancer Industry and used to misdirect men towards unnecessary testing and unneeded treatments. This early cancer detection-to-treatment hoax using PSA-based screening commonly robbed men of their health, failed to save significant numbers of lives and, only caused a gigantic public health disaster.
Other Factors That Influence Psa Levels
The PSA blood test alone cannot diagnose prostate cancer. It is possible, although rare, to have prostate cancer without raised PSA levels in the blood. A higher-than-normal PSA level doesnt automatically indicate prostate cancer either. A high PSA level is due to cancer in around one in three cases.
PSA levels can be raised by other factors, including:
- , also known as benign prostatic enlargement .
For this reason, the PSA blood test isnt used in isolation when checking for prostate cancer.
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What Were Some Of The Notable Findings Were Any Of Them Surprising To You And Your Co
Just to summarize the key findings, the sensitivity for clinically significant cancer was 93%. The total of patients who had significant cancer was 220, and 16 of them had what we call negative molecular evidence for prostate cancer, or the assay suggested low molecular evidence of cancer. One important point is that there’s not a direct correlation between the readout of this assay and the pathology because the assay is really giving us a molecular characterization of the cancer. So, for example, there are grade group 2 cancers that are clearly indolent. We think it’s very plausible that the molecular characterization of these cancers using this Sentinel platform might give a negative readout, indicating that it’s actually an indolent cancer despite the presence of some grade group 4. That’s something to bear in mind when you’re looking at the results.
The Highly Unreliable Dre
The DRE is a finger examination of the prostate that has the same accuracy as a coin-toss. Performing this feeble test every few months during so-called prostate cancer surveillance makes no scientific sense can be very uncomfortable is especially unreliable for detecting the potentially deadly 15% or so of high-grade cancers early and, the examination is open to errors of interpretation and concerns for, feeling something sensing a nodule or, feeling unevenness . Terms designed to create confusion and doubt and, push men towards unneeded but money-making evaluations.
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