Non-invasive Early Diagnosis Kit for Prostate Cancer

Unique ID

TO84457

Technology Status

Licensed But Available

Technology Readiness Level

TRL7

Published on

31st May 2018

Updated on

5th Dec 2018

Technology Overview

Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers in men around the world but it is treatable if detected in its early stages. According to Hong Kong Cancer Registry statistics, prostate cancer is the third most common cancer in men and the fifth most fatal cancer.

According to a newsletter “MedicalNewsToday” (source: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/150086. php), approximately 50 percent of all men over the age of 50 years have prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia (PIN). Low-grade PIN is not a cause for concern but high-grade PIN is considered pre-cancerous, and it requires further investigation. Nowadays, the clinical practice is to check serum prostate specific antigen (PSA) blood levels but the accuracy is quite low.

This newly developed prostate cancer diagnosis kit complements the PSA test. It can be used as an additional urine test for patients with PSA test levels within 4-10 ng/ml, to greatly enhance accuracy, from 27% to approximately 90%. It is a next-generation diagnostic method for prostate cancer in its early stages and is as simple to use as a pregnancy test strip. This provides a much clearer result for clinicians and patients to decide on further treatment. The new technology has the potential to address the current medical challenge of poor prostate cancer screening outcomes.

Technology Features & Specifications

Typical diagnostic methods such as CT and MRI are invasive in nature and require tissue samples for analysis, affecting the normal functions of organs and causing different side effects. On the contrary, prostate cancer screening is an attempt to detect unsuspected cancers in their very early stage by a simple mean. It may be used to gear up for more specific follow-up diagnostic tests, and, if required, cancer treatments. We developed a cheap and accurate screening test that can minimize the large medical cost brought by those expensive and tedious diagnostic tests for confirmation, which, regrettably, usually come up with a negative result. Our technology features high sensitivity and accuracy, fast detection, noninvasive, simple to use and cost effective.

Potential Applications

From our results, urinary spermine had demonstrated an exceptionally good diagnostic performance to distinguish the prostate cancer patients from non-cancerous cases, with results in accordance with the clinical standard of transrectal ultrasound prostatic biopsy results. Our technology can be described as the next-generation medical imaging reagents for prostate cancer detection that can even be used at home.