OGT Presents Promising Prostate Cancer Biomarker Panel Results
Company optimistic about pilot data and embarks on rigorous clinical study
Oxford Gene Technology (OGT has presented potentially highly significant, preliminary data on the development of a panel of biomarkers for the diagnosis of prostate cancer. In the pilot study, a set of biomarkers was identified which can distinguish prostate cancer from control samples with both sensitivity and specificity above 90%, far higher than existing diagnostic tests. These data were presented at the Fourth American Association for Cancer Research International Conference: molecular diagnostics in Cancer Therapeutic Development, in Denver on 27-30 September.
Prostate cancer caused an estimated 258,000 deaths worldwide in 2008, and is the second most common cause of cancer deaths in males in the USA with approximately 32,000 deaths estimated for 2010. Currently the most effective screening tests available are based on a single biomarker, prostate specific antigen (PSA). Screening for prostate cancer using PSA is controversial as it is known to have low specificity (generally less than 50%), which generates high false positive rates, resulting in many unnecessary surgical and radiotherapy procedures. The development of autoantibodies associated with prostate cancer, and their appearance prior to symptoms in other cancers, makes them attractive as potential biomarkers for early diagnosis of prostate cancer.
OGT has developed the unique Sense Proteomic™ “functional protein” array platform which uses over a thousand correctly folded proteins to detect autoantibodies in prostate cancer serum samples. Using leading-edge data analysis strategies, the company has identified panels of multiple biomarkers which may have clinical utility in the diagnosis of prostate cancer. In this new pilot study presented at the AACR conference, 73 prostate cancer and 60 control samples were used to identify a set of biomarkers which can distinguish prostate cancer from control samples with both sensitivity and specificity above 90% — well above the “standard” for PSA.
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