The Urine Prostate Seq Test (UPSeq)
- The Urine Prostate Seq Test (UPSeq) is a urine-based screening tool being developed by researchers with the goal of capturing everything that’s happening in the prostate and quickly detecting signs of cancer that need to be treated.
- An expert tells SurvivorNet that though the test is still in its early phase, the results have been able to detect cancers that need to be treated with high accuracy thus far.
- The current screening method for prostate cancer is the PSA test, which is effective but still has some flaws.
“The rationale for our work is to figure out a way to develop a test that may capture everything that’s happening in the prostate,” Dr. Simpa Salami, a urologist at Michigan Medicine and a member of the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center, tells SurvivorNet in an interview. “Ideally you want that test to be simple, cheap, and easy to do. We found that a urine-based approach could capture what is going on in the entire prostate.”
Read MoreWhile initial results of this test are promising, it’s too early to say whether it’ll be the future of prostate cancer detection. Experts agree that the goal is to find a screening method which is better than the PSA test which is currently used.
Related: Prostate Cancer & Bone Health: What You Need to Know
“There’s a lot of tests out there right now that outperform PSA,” Dr. Stephen Freedland, director of the Center for Integrated Research in Cancer and Lifestyle at Cedars-Sinai, tells SurvivorNet. “While this is interesting it’s really early and needs a lot more validation first. Not just compared against PSA but compared against PSA that includes age, rectal exam findings and prostate size. There’s a lot of factors that we already know effect the likelihood of finding cancer. So while beating PSA is step one, simply beating PSA doesn’t mean it’s ready for primetime use. There are further steps and further analysis.”
Prostate Cancer Screening: PSA Test
Currently, the tool used to detect signs of prostate cancer is through the PSA test, a blood test, but experts note that there are still a few flaws with this screening method. Through the PSA test, doctors examine whether PSA, or protein-specific antigen, is present in the blood. While a small amount of PSA is certainly normal to be present in the blood, a large amount can point to signs of prostate cancer. However, the problem that occurs with the PSA test is that an elevated amount of PSA does not always mean someone has cancer.
“PSA does have limitations,” Dr. Salami says. “Sometimes you have elevated PSA in other conditions that are not cancer. PSA also typically can rise in benign conditions as we age. So you [can] end up in a situation where patients may have elevated PSA where they do not have cancer.”
Experts break down both the positives and negatives of the PSA test
That being said, just because the PSA test is flawed does not mean you should skip prostate cancer screening. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men, and multiple factors including age, race, family history, and genetics are associated with the disease. That’s why it’s important to utilize any screening tool which may be able to help you detect signs of the cancer early. The earlier stage the cancer is caught, the more treatment options you’ll have as a patient.
“We know in randomized trials that screening for prostate cancer is the best thing you can do to reduce your risk of dying from prostate cancer,” Dr. Freedland says. “It works.”
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