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Clinical Research

Efforts to resolve the contradictions in early diagnosis of prostate cancer: a comparison of different algorithms of sarcosine in urine

Prostate Cancer and Prostatic Diseases volume 14, pages 166–172 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

Controversial data on sarcosine as a promising biomarker for prostate cancer (PCa) detection are present. The objective was to clarify these discrepancies and reevaluate the potential value of sarcosine in PCa. Sarcosine algorithms (supernatant and sediment sarcosine/creatinine, supernatant and sediment log2 (sarcosine/alanine)) in urine samples from 71 untreated patients with PCa, 39 patients with no evidence of malignancy (NEM) and 20 healthy women and men were quantified by liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry. Although any sarcosine algorithms were significantly higher in PCa patients than in NEM patients (all P<0.05), comparable sarcosine values were measured in healthy women and men. Additionally, neither biopsy Gleason score nor clinical T-stage were correlated with sarcosine algorithms (all P>0.05), and receiver operating characteristic curve analysis indicated that the diagnostic power of any of sarcosine algorithms was nonsignificantly higher than that of serum and urine PSA, but nonsignificantly lower than prostate cancer antigen 3 (PCA3) and the percent-free PSA (%fPSA). Improved diagnostic performances were observed when any of sarcosine algorithms was combined with PCA3 or %fPSA. In conclusion, the predictive power of sarcosine in PCa is modest compared with PCA3 and %fPSA. Sarcosine, which awaits more validation before it reaches the clinic, could be included into the list of candidate PCa biomarkers.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Jun Qian from our Cancer Center (Phase I clinical laboratory), Yu-Hu Xin and Yue Cao from our Cancer Center (Department of Laboratory) and Yan Huang from our Cancer Center (Department of Gynecology) for providing technical assistance. This study was supported by the Shanghai Charitable Cancer Research Center; Grant no. Shaz200908.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Urology, Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, Shanghai, China

    D-L Cao, D-W Ye, Y Zhu, H-L Zhang & X-D Yao

  2. Department of Oncology, Shanghai Medical College, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

    D-L Cao, D-W Ye, Y Zhu, H-L Zhang & X-D Yao

  3. Phase I clinical laboratory, Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, Shanghai, China

    Y-X Wang

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  1. D-L Cao
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Correspondence to X-D Yao.

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Cao, DL., Ye, DW., Zhu, Y. et al. Efforts to resolve the contradictions in early diagnosis of prostate cancer: a comparison of different algorithms of sarcosine in urine. Prostate Cancer Prostatic Dis 14, 166–172 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/pcan.2011.2

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