New form of prostate cancer diagnosis could detect disease more accurately

A new approach to diagnosing prostate cancer has shown promising results in a small patient trial in the UK.

It uses a blood test to detect circulating tumour cells (CTC's) which have left the original tumour and entered the bloodstream prior to the disease spreading.

The technique is a form of liquid biopsy that aims to better detect aggressive disease.

For decades, the PSA blood test has been the best hope of detecting prostate cancer but the PSA protein may be present in the blood for reasons other than cancer.

"The current prostate cancer test often leads to unnecessary invasive biopsies and over diagnosis and over treatment," said lead researcher Professor Yong-Jie Lu from Queen Mary University of London.

"There is clearly a need for better selection of patients to undergo the biopsy procedure."

Their study looked at the use of the CTC test in 98 pre-biopsy patients and 155 newly diagnosed cancer patients at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London.

It found that when the CTC tests were used in combination with the current PSA test, it was able to predict the presence of aggressive prostate cancer with over 90 percent accuracy.

The study was published in the Journal of Urology.

Melbourne chemical pathologist Dr Ken Sikaris says the research is promising.

"The potential is there but they need to do further studies," he said.

In Australia, diagnosis of disease has been improved with the use of advanced imaging, called multiparametric-MRI, which is now Medicare funded.

But experts say there is more room for improvement as the disease continues to claim more than 3000 lives in Australia each year.

"Obviously more needs to be done. 3,500 men are dying and we need to make more men aware of catching it early," said Steve Callister, Chairman of the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia.

The latest guidelines recommend PSA testing every two years for men over 50 and for those with a family history testing can start from age 40.