Prostate-specific antigen detection by ultrasensitive assay in samples from women

✍ Scribed by Filella, Xavier; Molina, Rafael; Alcover, Juan; Menéndez, Violeta; Giménez, Núria; Jo, Judith; Carretero, Pablo; Ballesta, Antonio Manuel

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 505 KB
• Volume: 29
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0270-4137
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-0045(199611)29:5<311::aid-pros6>3.0.co;2-c

✦ Synopsis

Background:

The prostate specific antigen (psa) has been characterized as a specific prostate marker. recent studies have indicated the existence of a psa of nonprostatic origin detected in lactating women and breast tumors.

Methods:

We have evaluated the presence of psa by an ultrasensitive assay (cobas core) in 252 serum and non serum samples from women.

Results:

The results demonstrate the presence of psa in 100% of the breast secretions, 81% of the breast cysts, 80% of the bronchoalveolar lavage fluids and 71% of the cytosols of breast cancer. likewise, psa was detected in 14% of the sera evaluated, although the concentrations were always lower than 0.5 ng/ml.

Conclusions:

We conclude that psa should not continue being considered as the specific prostate tissue marker although, given that the serum concentrations detected are very low, they do appear to interfere to a minimum extent in the usefulness of psa as a tumor marker.