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[Correct use of prostate-specific antigen in office practice]
F-R Desfemmes1, E Deligne, O Ghoundale
1Service d'Urologie, Hôpital d'Instruction des Armées du Val-de-Grâce, 74, boulevard Port-Royal, 75005 Paris, France. fre.desfemmes@neuf.fr <fre.desfemmes@neuf.fr>
Objective:
To standardize interpretation and comments of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) assay results by clinical pathology laboratories in office practice.
Material:
From September 2004 to May 2006, interpretation and comments of PSA assay results performed by 100 different laboratories were analysed retrospectively.
Results:
Nineteen different PSA assay kits were used. The so-called "normal" value for total PSA was less than 4 ng/ml for two-thirds of kits. Determination of the free PSA/total PSA ratio (91 cases) was based on a cut-off value ranging from 10 to 25% and the frequent laboratory comments (89 cases) more often referred to benign prostatic hyperplasia (51 case) than prostate cancer (nine cases).
Conclusion:
The marked diversity of PSA assay techniques currently used and the divergent interpretations by various laboratories lead to problems of interpretation for both practitioners and patients.
