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Updated: Jul 5, 2026
Detection and Isolation of Cancer in Prostate Biopsies Using Stimulated Raman Histology and Artificial Intelligence
Published on: June 10, 2025
Detecting prostate cancer by intracellular macrophage prostate-specific antigen (PSA): a more specific and sensitive
R Herwig1, D Mitteregger, B Djavan
1Department of Urology, Medical University Vienna, Vienna, Austria. ralf.herwig@meduniwien.ac.at
Background:
Serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA) is a standard method and a widely used marker for prostate cancer, but it has a poor specificity for early detection. Herein we demonstrate that intracellular macrophage PSA (imPSA) enables screening and differentiation between benign and malignant prostate disease.
Materials And Methods:
The efficacy of intracellular macrophage PSA in circulating and tissue macrophages was therefore investigated in a double-centre study of 38 prostate cancer patients and 36 healthy controls by fluorescent-activated cell sorting analysis and immunohistology.
Results:
Both methods uncovered the existence of PSA-positive macrophages specific for patients with prostate cancer. In addition, we demonstrate the superiority of our new test over standard serum total PSA in a blinded double-centre trial. ImPSA had a marked higher sensitivity and specificity than serum total PSA (imPSA: sensitivity 92%, specificity 92%, positive predictive value 92%; serum total PSA: sensitivity 79.5%, specificity 87.5%, positive predictive value 26.8%).
Conclusion:
In this study, we demonstrate that imPSA is a new prostate cancer screening method that is highly sensitive and more specific than standard PSA testing.
