The latest research on the urine test suggests that it has the potential to save 3,500 men annually who are diagnosed with prostate cancer.
So far the newly developed urine test has shown to be 70 percent effective in detecting prostate cancer compared to blood tests.
If more studies are done and the urine test is found to be successful it could become the leading diagnostic method and can help reduce the amount of invasive diagnostic procedures. This test could also help identify aggressive prostate cancer earlier so that treatment can begin sooner thus improving outcomes for patients.
Lead researcher Dr. Antoinette Perry explained, “Over the last four years our research team at University College Dublin has worked with doctors, nurses, patients and other scientists from around Ireland, the UK, USA and Canada to study urine from almost 500 men. We showed that almost 90 percent of men with aggressive prostate cancer have changes in their DNA that we could find in their urine.”
“These changes were absent in healthy men and men with non-aggressive disease. If we can replicate these findings, our research could contribute to a new, more accurate test to help catch aggressive prostate cancer and save lives from this disease.”
The latest urine test findings are an innovative new approach to diagnosing prostate cancer and reveals how far medicine has come in the area of improving diagnostic methods.
Additional research is required before the urine test becomes a diagnostic method of prostate cancer, we are much closer to soon having a new method to better detect and treat prostate cancer.