The next wave of disease diagnosis - proteomics

Patterns of proteins found in patients' blood serum may help distinguish between prostate cancer and benign conditions, scientists from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) report in the "Journal of the National Cancer Institute". The new proteomic approach which requires a drop of blood and just 30 minutes has a high specificity in deciding whether to perform a biopsy in men with elevated prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels. Using this technique, researchers were able to differentiate between samples taken from patients diagnosed with cancer and those from patients diagnosed with benign prostate disease.
Although the technique is still under evaluation, it is believed that this can serve as a powerful tool in the diagnosis of other cancers as well.

Contact:
Jennifer Michalowski
National Cancer Institute Press Office
www.cancer.gov
(301) 496-6641

Message posted by: Rashmi Nemade