WARF is seeking commercial partners for a new imaging-based method for diagnosing prostate cancer.
Researchers at UW-Madison have developed a way to detect prostate cancer by analyzing a prostate tissue sample for certain physical factors linked to the presence of cancer, according to the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.
These changes, occurring in cancerous prostates “in regions away from the tumor sites,” have been found to be “statistically significantly different … between men with and without clinically significant cancer elsewhere in the prostate.”
The WARF site shows current clinical practice for prostate cancer screening uses a prostate specific antigen, or PSA, test.
But this method also detects “non-significant cancers, leading to an estimated 50% of over-diagnosis.” And sampling errors can lead to several sample biopsies being required for a diagnosis, or cancers being missed altogether, WARF says.
The new image analysis method is touted as “simple, rapid and quantitative,” and requires resources that are “widely used by every hospital pathology laboratory,” the site shows. WARF says researchers have tested it on tissue samples from more than 100 patients.
David Jarrard, a professor in the university’s Department of Urology and the associate director of the UW Carbone Cancer Center, is listed as the method’s inventor.
See further details here: https://www.warf.org/technologies/summary/P190032US02/
See more on his lab’s work: https://urology.wisc.edu/research/researchers-and-laboratories/dr-jarrards-lab/
