By Diagnostics World Staff
March 9, 2017 | MDxHealth announced that SelectMDx for Prostate Cancer will be used for the newly launched prostate cancer risk clinic at the University of Michigan.
The Michigan Medicine prostate cancer risk clinic will monitor men who have been previously diagnosed with genetic mutations, particularly BRCA1 and BRCA2, that indicate a genetic predisposition to aggressive prostate cancer. These high-risk patients will be tested with SelectMDx for Prostate Cancer to ascertain the likelihood that clinically significant prostate cancer (Gleason Score ≥7) would be detected upon prostate biopsy, helping with patient management decisions.
Although there remains some controversy about which men should undergo routine screening for prostate cancer, based on concerns about the accuracy of the prostate specific antigen (PSA) test, recent studies have indicated that men who have BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations are at high risk for aggressive prostate cancer and would benefit from closer monitoring. The SelectMDx test can improve upon the traditional clinical data to identify men, in this high-risk BRCA-mutation pool, who may harbour prostate cancer. By targeting biomarkers associated with aggressive prostate cancer, SelectMDx can help distinguish the men with a high likelihood of prostate cancer upon biopsy, and the probability for high-grade disease, from the men at very low risk for aggressive disease with a 98% negative predictive value (NPV).