Project Overview (live on website)

Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in Canadian men and, unfortunately, is also the most over treated cancer. Currently, prostate cancer screening is performed with the prostate specific antigen (PSA) serum test but, in up to 30% of cases, PSA is elevated for reasons other than prostate cancer, leading to many unnecessary and invasive prostate biopsies.  We propose a blood test that identifies men with intermediate-to-high risk prostate cancer which will minimize overtreatment of prostate cancer. This assay is based on circulating tumour cell fragments, known as microparticles, which are vesicles derived from the tumour cell membrane. Our prelimianary data correlates microparticle biomarker levels in serum with Gleason Score, currently the gold standard for prostate cancer diagnosis. Using a combination of affinity reagents against the proteins and glycans carried by the microparticles, we propose to characterize the microparticles in patient plasma samples. The resulting data will be correlated with patient outcomes in a retrospective analysis to determine the efficacy of the assay in identifying intermediate to high risk prostate cancers.