NEW YORK, NEW YORK (PRWEB) May 29, 2015
A multi-center study led by NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center has found that a urine test can determine if a patient has high-grade prostate cancer with 92 percent accuracy. Dr. James McKiernan presented these findings at the American Urological Association 2015 Annual Meeting Press Event.
Dr. McKiernan is the urologist-in-chief at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia and the John K. Lattimer Professor and chair of the Department of Urology at Columbia University Medical Center.
“This study could represent a breakthrough in how we screen for prostate cancer,” said Dr. McKiernan. “Eventually, we hope this test will replace traditional invasive surgical biopsies, which often require patients to be tested more than once.”
The study looked at 1,600 men over 50 years old without a history of prostate cancer at 25 urology practices across the country. All of the men had been previously told by a physician that they required a biopsy to test for prostate cancer. The men’s urine was evaluated with a test called the Exo106, which focuses on exosomes, small organelles containing RNA that can be tested for cancer genes. Known as a “liquid biopsy,” Exo106 is a negative predictive test, meaning that if a patient’s results are negative, there is a 92 percent chance that he doesn’t high-grade prostate cancer.
Exo106 is the first exosomal RNA test for cancer in humans. While the test has not yet been approved the FDA and is still in trial stages, Exo106 offers clear advantages over traditional needle biopsy. Needle biopsies are invasive and often incur false positives and false negatives due to the difficulty in separating high-grade prostate cancer from other forms. Dr. McKiernan expects that adoption of Exo106 should result in a 27 percent reduction of prostate needle biopsies.
“This test is the first of its kind to detect prostate cancer, and it already appears to be more accurate than traditional biopsies,” said Dr. McKiernan. “From what we’ve seen so far, this method shows a lot of promise in both its ability to identify cancer and differentiate between types of the disease.”
NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital
NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, based in New York City, is one of the nation’s largest and most comprehensive hospitals and a leading provider of inpatient, ambulatory and preventive care in all areas of medicine. With some 2,600 beds and more than 6,500 affiliated physicians and 20,000 employees, NewYork-Presbyterian had more than 2 million visits in 2013, including close to 15,000 infant deliveries and more than 310,000 emergency department visits. NewYork-Presbyterian comprises six campuses: NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center, NewYork-Presbyterian/Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital, NewYork-Presbyterian/The Allen Hospital, NewYork-Presbyterian/Westchester Division and NewYork-Presbyterian/Lower Manhattan Hospital. The hospital is also closely affiliated with NewYork-Presbyterian/Hudson Valley Hospital and NewYork-Presbyterian/Lawrence Hospital. NewYork-Presbyterian is the #1 hospital in the New York metropolitan area, according to U.S. News & World Report, and consistently named to the magazine’s Honor Roll of best hospitals in the nation. Affiliated with two world-renowned medical schools, Weill Cornell Medical College and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, NewYork-Presbyterian is committed to excellence in patient care, research, education and community service. For more information, visit http://www.nyp.org.
Columbia University Medical Center provides international leadership in basic, preclinical, and clinical research; medical and health sciences education; and patient care. The medical center trains future leaders and includes the dedicated work of many physicians, scientists, public health professionals, dentists, and nurses at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, the Mailman School of Public Health, the College of Dental Medicine, the School of Nursing, the biomedical departments of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and allied research centers and institutions. Columbia University Medical Center is home to the largest medical research enterprise in New York City and State and one of the largest faculty medical practices in the Northeast. For more information, visit cumc.columbia.edu or columbiadoctors.org.