Study leads the way to early detection and treatment of aggressive prostate cancer
- Date:
- November 11, 2024
- Source:
- Queensland University of Technology
- Summary:
- Scientists uncover functionality of a genetic variant in the prostate specific antigen (PSA) gene to improve the current diagnostic test to help distinguish aggressive from non-aggressive prostate cancers.
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"Through comprehensive lab and mice tests we found that this SNP, although associated with reduced prostate cancer risk, is also associated with an aggressive type of this cancer," Dr Srinivasan said.
"This SNP contributes to reduced serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels that may lead to detection bias during PSA screening leading to delayed diagnosis and treatment."
Dr Srinivasan said the findings gave some insight into anomalies associated with current diagnostics and treatments for what is the second most common cancer in men world-wide.
"The PSA test has long been used as the basis of non-invasive diagnostic and prognostic prostate cancer tests, and it has saved lives," she said.
"However, the PSA test cannot identify aggressive versus non-aggressive types of cancer which means some tumours with high PSA in the blood can lead to over-diagnoses with over-treatment.
"This means often men undergo painful procedures such as biopsies for accurate diagnoses which affects their quality of life and incurs extra health system costs.
"Furthermore, because the PSA test is unable to identify aggressive cancers, tumours which exhibit low levels of PSA in the blood can get missed during early screening, leading to highly aggressive disease with high mortality."
Professor Jyotsna Batra, who led the study, said the research team was now using the information that men with genetic variations in the gene which codes for PSA could be predisposed to aggressive prostate cancer to develop tools that could be used by GPs to identify high-risk patients, but with low blood PSA levels.
"Findings from this study may lead to developing a novel and simple point-of-care (POC) device," Professor Batra said.
"It is an important step forward in an era of personalised treatment because it can provide an individualised diagnostic assessment that can be a guide for more appropriate clinical care."
QUT Distinguished Professor Emeritus Judith Clements, who co-led the research with Professor Batra, from QUT's School of Biomedical Sciences, said: "Our findings may enable better prognostic prediction and, by distinguishing the more aggressive cancers, identify a high-risk group that need early treatment."
This project is part of Professor Batra's research focus on unravelling the genetic intricacies of hereditary disorders using bioinformatics and experimental approaches.
The QUT team comprises Professor Batra, Dr Srinivasan, Dr Achala Fernando, Emeritus Distinguished Professor Clements, Associate Professor Nathalie Bock, Adjunct Professor Ian Vela, Adjunct Professor Rupert C Ecker, Adjunct Professor Nigel Brown. More than 60 researchers from around the world contributed to the study.
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Materials provided by Queensland University of Technology. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Journal Reference:
- Srilakshmi Srinivasan, Thomas Kryza, Nathalie Bock, Brian W. C. Tse, Kamil A. Sokolowski, Panchadsaram Janaththani, Achala Fernando, Leire Moya, Carson Stephens, Ying Dong, Joan Röhl, Saeid Alinezhad, Ian Vela, Joanna L. Perry-Keene, Katie Buzacott, Robert Nica, Elizabeth Bancroft, Elizabeth Page, Audrey Ardern-Jones, Chris Bangma, Elena Castro, David Dearnaley, Diana Eccles, Gareth Evans, Jorunn Eyfjord, Alison Falconer, Christopher Foster, Freddie C. Hamdy, Óskar Þór Jóhannsson, Vincent Khoo, Geoffrey Lindeman, Jan Lubinski, Lovise Maehle, Alan Millner, Christos Mikropoulos, Anita Mitra, Clare Moynihan, Judith Offman, Gad Rennert, Lucy Side, Mohnish Suri, Penny Wilson, Manuela Gago-Dominguez, Pardeep Kumar, Antonis Antoniou, Jana McHugh, Holly Ni Raghallaigh, Rose Hall, Natalie Taylor, Sarah Thomas, Kathryn Myhill, Matthew Hogben, Eva McGrowder, Diana Keating, Denzil James, Joe Merson, Syed Hussain, Angela Wood, Nening Dennis, Paul Ardern-Jones, Nick van As, Steve Hazell, Sarah Lewis, Paul Pharoah, Jack Schalken, Aslam Sohaib, Nandita de Souza, Paul Cathcart, Frank Chingewundoh, Mathew Perry, Jeff Bamber, Alexander Dias, Christos Mikropolis, Sibel Saya, Antony Chamberlain, Anne-Marie Borges Da Silva, Lucia D’Mello, Sue Moss, Jane Melia, Netty Kinsella, Justyna Sobczak, Naami Mcaddy, David Nicol, Chris Ogden, Declan Cahill, Alan Thompson, Christopher Woodhouse, Vincent J. Gnanapragasam, Colin Cooper, Jeremy Clark, Johanna Schleutker, Christiane Maier, Kenneth Muir, Catherine M. Tangen, Henrik Gronberg, Nora Pashayan, Demetrius Albanes, Alicja Wolk, Janet L. Stanford, Sonja I. Berndt, Lorelei A. Mucci, Stella Koutros, Olivier Cussenot, Karina Dalsgaard Sorensen, Eli Marie Grindedal, Ruth C. Travis, Christopher A. Haiman, Robert J. MacInnis, Ana Vega, Fredrik Wiklund, David E. Neal, Manolis Kogevinas, Kathryn L. Penney, Børge G. Nordestgaard, Hermann Brenner, Esther M. John, Marija Gamulin, Frank Claessens, Olle Melander, Anders Dahlin, Pär Stattin, Göran Hallmans, Christel Häggström, Robert Johansson, Elin Thysell, Ann-Charlotte Rönn, Weiqiang Li, Nigel Brown, Goce Dimeski, Benjamin Shepherd, Tokhir Dadaev, Mark N. Brook, Amanda B. Spurdle, Ulf-Håkan Stenman, Hannu Koistinen, Zsofia Kote-Jarai, Robert J. Klein, Hans Lilja, Rupert C. Ecker, Rosalind Eeles, Fredrick R. Schumacher, Sara Benlloch, Ali Amin Al Olama, Stephen Chanock, Ying Wang, Stephanie J. Weinstein, Catharine M. L. West, Géraldine Cancel-Tassin, Jenny L. Donovan, Robert J. Hamilton, Sue Ann Ingles, Barry S. Rosenstein, Yong-Jie Lu, Graham G. Giles, Adam S. Kibel, Jong Y. Park, Cezary Cybulski, Sune F. Nielsen, Jeri Kim, Manuel R. Teixeira, Susan L. Neuhausen, Kim De Ruyck, Azad Razack, Lisa F. Newcomb, Davor Lessel, Radka Kaneva, Nawaid Usmani, Paul A. Townsend, Jose Esteban Castelao, Ron H. N. van Shaik, Florence Menegaux, Kay-Tee Khaw, Lisa Cannon-Albright, Hardev Pandha, Stephen N. Thibodeau, Peter Kraft, William J. Blot, Artitaya Lophatananon, Phyllis J. Goodman, Ian M. Thompson, Tobias Nordström, Alison M. Dunning, Teuvo L. J. Tammela, Anssi Auvinen, Niclas Håkansson, Gerald L. Andriole, Robert N. Hoover, Mitchell J. Machiela, Edward Giovannucci, Laura E. Beane Freeman, Michael Borre, Tim J. Key, Loic Le Marchand, Xin Sheng, Melissa C. Southey, Roger L. Milne, Antonio Gómez-Caamaño, Laura Fachal, Martin Eklund, Trinidad Dierssen-Sotos, Gemma Castaño-Vinyals, Antonio Alcaraz, Sara Lindström, Meir Stampfer, Stig E. Bojesen, Hein V. Stroomberg, Andreas Røder, Xin Gao, Bernd Holleczek, Ben Schöttker, Josef Hoegel, Thomas Schnoeller, Tomislav Kulis, Steven Joniau, Maria Elena Martinez, Markus Aly, Wayne Tilley, Gail P. Risbridger, Lisa Horvath, Renea Taylor, Lisa Butler, Anne-Maree Haynes, Melissa Papargiris, Ian Vela, Judith Clements, Jyotsna Batra. A PSA SNP associates with cellular function and clinical outcome in men with prostate cancer. Nature Communications, 2024; 15 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-52472-6
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