Scientists at the University of Cambridge have created an algorithm for predicting the development of prostate cancer that could help target screening to men most at risk.
- Prostate cancer is the leading cancer in men, according to Santé Publique France.
- Rare before the age of 50, its incidence increases gradually with age, according to the National Cancer Institute.
Ensuring that men most at risk for prostate cancer receive the appropriate tests while reducing unnecessary – and potentially invasive – testing for those at very low risk is the goal of CanRisk-Prostate.
Developed by researchers from the University of Cambridge and the Institute of Cancer Research in London, it is a new comprehensive screening tool that will be integrated into the tool CanRiskalready used by healthcare professionals around the world to help predict the risk of developing breast or ovarian cancer.
CanRisk-Prostate: a personalized screening tool for prostate cancer
Screening for prostate cancer currently involves a blood test that looks for a protein called prostate-specific antigen (PSA), made only by the prostate. But this analysis lacks precision: according to the National Health ServiceIhe UK public health system, about three out of four men with high PSA levels do not have cancer. Other tests, such as tissue biopsies or MRI scans, are needed to confirm a diagnosis.
CanRisk-Prostate would therefore replace unnecessary biopsies of many prostate tumours, identified by PSA tests, which grow slowly and would not have been life-threatening. The treatment of these tumors could indeed do more harm than good, indicates Professor Antonis Antoniou, from the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Cambridge, who explains the interest of CanRisk-Prostate: “For the first time, it combines information on genetic makeup and family history of prostate cancer, the main risk factors for the disease, to provide personalized cancer risks.”
A new tool developed using data from 17,000 families
In their article published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the researchers describe how they developed the first comprehensive model of prostate cancer from the genetic data and family history of nearly 17,000 families affected by prostate cancer. By studying this data, they discovered that it was possible to target screening and diagnostic testing to the subset of the population at the highest risk of developing the disease.
Professor Ros Eeles, of the Institute of Cancer Research in London and co-author of the study, said: “This is an important advance because it will allow clinicians to discuss with men their individual risk for prostate cancer based on the most accurate computer model to date. This will help them make screening decisions.”
Until now, the data used to develop CanRisk-Prostate came from men of European ancestry. The team hopes to include data from men of other ethnicities throughout the research.
