Doctors will soon use genetic " barcodes " new blood test - in addition to the normal screening - to determine how severe the prostate cancer and how a man should be treated urgently .
British researchers have found distinct genetic signature for prostate cancer and to design an experimental blood test that reads genetic changes like a barcode .
The researchers say a blood test can be used with existing PSA ( Prostate - Specific Antigen ) screening to determine men need more aggressive treatment or direct .
Screening and biopsy
For most men , however , screening often leads to a biopsy , which is currently the only way to predict the aggressiveness of prostate cancer . But biopsy is invasive and carries the potential for complications , according to Johann de Bono , chief of prostate cancer research team at The Institute of Cancer Research ( ICR ) in London .
A blood test , he argued , would be more convenient for the patient and potentially more accurate , and will allow them to be assessed during cancer treatment .
It can also provide information that can not biopsy , such as how the patient's immune system to [ influence ] survival ,
Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in men after lung cancer .
De Bono refers to prostate cancer as a " disease that is very diverse . " He said some people can live with it for years without symptoms , while others find themselves faced with a life-threatening form of aggressive .
Distinguishing types
The new blood test will help distinguish different types and allow physicians to tailor treatment accordingly.
De Bono's team scanned the genes in blood samples from 100 patients with prostate cancer at the London drug development unit jointly run by the ICR and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust , and at a cancer center in Glasgow . This group consisted of 69 patients with advanced cancer and 31 patients believed to have a low risk , early stage cancer .
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Using complex mathematical statistics , the researchers divided the patients into four groups based on their pattern of gene activity - that's the " barcode . " They measured the activity of genes by analyzing the levels of RNA , the genetic material that helps turn DNA into proteins .
After reviewing the progress of patients ' two - and - a- half years later , the researchers determined that patients in one group had survived for significantly less time than the other three .
Further statistical modeling identified nine key active genes shared by all patients in the group .
Similar findings of the U.S. study
British scientists then tested again 70 people with advanced cancer in the U.S. and confirmed that nine genes could be used to identify patients who ultimately survived for a shorter time - 9.2 months compared with 21.6 months for patients without the gene pattern .
The team of researchers said a gene signature involving a number of genes used by the immune system , suggesting that the immune system is suppressed in men whose cancer spread throughout their body .
In a separate project , a team of U.S. researchers led by Professor William Oh at the Tisch Cancer Institute of Mount Sinai School of Medicine identified a set of six genes , is associated with more aggressive forms of prostate cancer , in a group of 62 patients .
Gene signatures from the U.S. team divided the patients into two groups : one with a survival time of an average of 7.8 months and 34.9 months other .
The second study just published in the Lancet Oncology .
The tests , if validated by the results in a larger number of patients , will be useful in showing what patients and doctors prospects - in other words , the patient may survive for several years compared with those for less than one year ,
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