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Updated: Aug 19, 2026
Microarray-based Identification of Individual HERV Loci Expression: Application to Biomarker Discovery in Prostate Cancer
Published on: November 3, 2013
[Early diagnosis of prostate cancer using free/total prostate-specific antigen ratio with population-based screening
Ling Zhang1, Guoyi Ji, Xiaomeng Li
1Research Center of Prostate Disease Prevention and Treatment, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin 130021, China. zhanglingmail@sohu.com
Objective:
To evaluate the use of free/total prostate-specific antigen ratio (fPSA/tPSA ratio) in improving the early diagnosis of prostate cancer.
Methods:
fPSA/tPSA ratio in the serum was analyzed prospectively in 187 men with tPSA ranging between 4.0 and 20.0 microg/L. All of them underwent ultrasound-guided sextant prostatic biopsies. Sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values were calculated by SPSS 10.0 software.
Results:
Prostate cancer detection rates were 18.1% and 22.5% when tPSA was within the ranges of 4.0-10.0 g/L and 10.0-20.0 g/L respectively. fPSA/tPSA ratio was more significant than tPSA in all the men. When the cut-off value of fPSA/tPSA ratio was set at 0.25, 90.5% and 87.5% of cancers could be detected; and 26.7% and 11.3% of biopsies could be avoided within the tPSA ranges of 4.0-10.0 g/L and 10.0-20.0 g/L, respectively.
Conclusion:
The use of fPSA/tPSA ratio can improve prostate cancer detection and reduce unnecessary biopsies when tPSA is within the range of 4.0-10.0 microg/L and 10.0-20.0 microg/L.
