Urinary Biomarkers for Prostate Cancer

Title:Urinary Biomarkers for Prostate Cancer

Volume: 18 Issue: 8

Author(s): Francesca Giunchi, Chiara Ciccarese, Rodolfo Montironi, Marina Scarpelli, Antonio Lopez-Beltran, Liang Cheng, Holger Moch, Francesco Massari and Michelangelo Fiorentino*

Affiliation:

• Addarii Institute of Oncology, Viale Ercolani 4/2, 40138, Bologna,Italy

Keywords: Urinary markers, prostate, biomarkers, prostate cancer, PCA3, TMPRSS2-ERG fusion.

Abstract: Background: Urine may represent a convenient source of biomarkers for the early detection of Prostate Cancer (PCa) since it contains secreted prostatic products and exfoliated tumor cells. Furthermore, urine is easy to collect with non-invasive procedures which are repeatable.

Method: Several urinary biomarkers for PCa have been proposed in the past but only one (PCA3) has been approved for clinical use and even this is not widely utilized in the routine practice. Most of these, particularly the proteins, were abandoned due to lack of confirmation. DNA markers have been proposed but they are less suitable compared to other malignancies, such as bladder cancer due to the limited amount of DNA somatic alterations in PCa compared to gene fusions and pathway activations.

Conclusion: RNA biomarkers are still the most promising and particularly miRNA and AMACR mRNA but the main weaknesses that prevented the full clinical implementation are the absence of a validated of the cut-off levels and the identification of consistent reference standards.

Cite this article as:

Giunchi Francesca , Ciccarese Chiara , Montironi Rodolfo , Scarpelli Marina , Lopez-Beltran Antonio , Cheng Liang , Moch Holger , Massari Francesco and Fiorentino Michelangelo *, Urinary Biomarkers for Prostate Cancer, Current Drug Metabolism 2017; 18 (8) . https://dx.doi.org/10.2174/1389200218666170518161140