Scientists from Britain’s Institute of Cancer Research say they’ve developed a technique to markedly help in predicting the behavior of prostate cancer.
At present, prostate cancer tests – including needle biopsies and blood and urine samples – are unable to accurately predict how aggressive the cancer is and whether it is likely to progress. That often results in thousands of men undergoing radical preventative surgery that might be unnecessary.
Institute researchers report developing a simple and highly reliable technique known as the “Checkerboard Tissue Microarray Method,” which can be carried out on prostate cancer needle biopsies.
The technique looks for multiple markers of various genes associated with prostate cancer, including the E2F3 gene. Over-expression of the E2F3 gene is a marker of how aggressive the prostate cancer will be.
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer affecting men in the United Kingdom, where more than 30,000 men are diagnosed with the disease and nearly 10,000 men die from the disease annually.