New! Sign up for our free email newsletter.
Science News
from research organizations

Progress in developing an accurate, noninvasive urine test for prostate cancer

Date:
February 28, 2020
Source:
Johns Hopkins Medicine
Summary:
Researchers have made significant progress toward development of a simple, noninvasive liquid biopsy test that detects prostate cancer from RNA and other specific metabolic chemicals in the urine.
Share:
FULL STORY

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center have made significant progress toward development of a simple, noninvasive liquid biopsy test that detects prostate cancer from RNA and other specific metabolic chemicals in the urine.

A description of their findings appears in the Feb. 28 issue of the journal Scientific Reports.

The investigators emphasize that this is a proof-of-principle study for the urine test, and it must be validated in additional, larger studies before it is ready for clinical use.

The researchers used RNA deep-sequencing and mass spectrometry to identify a previously unknown profile of RNAs and dietary byproducts, known as metabolites, among 126 patients and healthy, normal people. The cohort included 64 patients with prostate cancer, 31 with benign prostatic hyperplasia and prostatitis diseases, and 31 healthy people with none of these conditions. RNA alone was not sufficient to positively identify the cancer, but addition of a group of disease-specific metabolites provided separation of cancer from other diseases and healthy people.

"A simple and noninvasive urine test for prostate cancer would be a significant step forward in diagnosis. Tissue biopsies are invasive and notoriously difficult because they often miss cancer cells, and existing tests, such as PSA (prostate-specific antigen) elevation, are not very helpful in identifying cancer," says Ranjan Perera, Ph.D., the study's senior author. Perera is also the director of the Center for RNA Biology at Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital, a senior scientist at the Johns Hopkins All Children's Cancer & Blood Disorders Institute and the Johns Hopkins All Children's Institute for Fundamental Biomedical Research, and an associate professor of oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center member.

"We discovered cancer-specific changes in urinary RNAs and metabolites that -- if confirmed in a larger, separate group of patients -- will allow us to develop a urinary test for prostate cancer in the future," says Bongyong Lee, Ph.D., the study's first author and a senior scientist at the Cancer & Blood Disorders Institute.


Story Source:

Materials provided by Johns Hopkins Medicine. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Journal Reference:

  1. Bongyong Lee, Iqbal Mahmud, John Marchica, Paweł Dereziński, Feng Qi, Fubo Wang, Piyush Joshi, Felipe Valerio, Inoel Rivera, Vipul Patel, Christian P. Pavlovich, Timothy. J. Garrett, Gary P. Schroth, Yinghao Sun, Ranjan J. Perera. Integrated RNA and metabolite profiling of urine liquid biopsies for prostate cancer biomarker discovery. Scientific Reports, 2020; 10 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-60616-z

Cite This Page:

Johns Hopkins Medicine. "Progress in developing an accurate, noninvasive urine test for prostate cancer." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 28 February 2020. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200228102213.htm>.
Johns Hopkins Medicine. (2020, February 28). Progress in developing an accurate, noninvasive urine test for prostate cancer. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 31, 2024 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200228102213.htm
Johns Hopkins Medicine. "Progress in developing an accurate, noninvasive urine test for prostate cancer." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200228102213.htm (accessed October 31, 2024).

Explore More

from ScienceDaily

RELATED STORIES