Mayo Clinic discovers method of predicting cancer prognosis

Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in men after skin cancer and the second leading cause of cancer death in American men, exceeded only by lung cancer. This year, the American Cancer Society estimates 232,000 new cases of prostate cancer will be diagnosed. Because it causes disability and death, finding new strategies to better target treatments is an important public health goal.

Researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota reviewed the records of 2,290 patients with multiple preoperative prostate specific antigen (PSA) measurements, recording both velocity, the rate at which it increased in the body, and the rate at which PSA levels doubled. The researchers found that while PSA velocity (PSAV) is simpler to calculate, PSA doubling time (PSADT) may be a better indicator of untreated prostate cancer.

As both measurements proved valuable, looking at the speed at which PSA increases may be more important than simply recording PSA levels, allowing better prediction of disease progression and likelihood of death after radical prostatectomy surgery.

“The level of PSA in the blood has less prognostic value than we previously thought, and we don’t have another serum marker to help us,” said Dr Michael Blute, Mayo Clinic urologist and lead investigator of the study. “It was important for us to find other ways to look at PSA data and translate that into information that will save lives, and I believe we have done that.”