Detecting Prostate Cancer

The right treatment for prostate cancer often depends on how aggressive the disease is.

Dr. Ronald Ennis, Director of Radiation Oncology at St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital says, “We’re looking for tools to do better at predicting in advance how its going to behave, and so can tailor the advice of the treatment better.“

Testing for chemicals called metabolites may help.  Researchers at the University of Michigan say they found that as prostate cancer develops, the levels of one of these chemicals, increased.  It was found in both tumor cells and urine samples.

The current test for prostate cancer, called PSA, often indicates cancer where there is none.

Robert Caliguire had to have several biopsies before he was diagnosed with cancer.

Caliguire is one of 200,000 men diagnosed with prostate cancer in the U.S. each year. The 81-year-old wasted no time getting treatment.

The new findings could lead to a simple non-invasive test and new drugs to treat prostate cancer. That’s because lab tests showed that when the metabolite was blocked it slowed the tumor’s growth.

But doctors say it will likely take years before this research can be put to practical use.  Caliguire hopes it may help someone else avoid some of the
difficulties he faced.