Protein Marker Promising for Prostate Cancer

In an expansion of an earlier study, researchers testing the blood of 36 men with prostate cancer and 20 healthy men found a specific protein in the blood of the 36 men with prostate cancer that was absent in the blood of healthy men. Moreover, eight of the 36 men had been missed by a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test. The findings were reported at the American Association of Clinical Chemistry's 33rd Oak Ridge Conference, in Seattle (WA, USA).

The blood test is based on the nuclear matrix protein (NMP) technology developed by Matritech, Inc. (Newton, MA, USA), which correlates levels of NMPs in body fluids to the presence of cancer. The study was conducted by Matritech scientists in collaboration with scientists from The Johns Hopkins Hospital (Baltimore, MD, USA). Blood specimens are tested using Matritch's proprietary specimen preparation and mass spectrometry procedures. The company has discovered other NMP markers for breast cancer and colon cancer.

"The next step in the development of our prostate cancer test is to develop a test procedure suitable for routine use by clinical laboratories. Our scientific team has begun work on that process now and the initial results are encouraging,” said David L. Corbet, president of Matritech.




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