Assessing the Diagnostic Value of Plasma-Free DNA in Prostate Cancer Screening

Prostate cancer is the second form of cancer among men worldwide. For early cancer detection, we should identify tumors in initial stages before the physical signs become visible. The present study aims to evaluate the diagnostic value of cell-free DNA (cfDNA), its comparison with prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level in prostate cancer screening and also in patients with localized prostate cancer, metastatic form, and benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH).

The participants of this study were selected from 126 patients with genitourinary symptoms suspected prostate cancer, rising PSA, and/or abnormal rectal examination results and 10 healthy subjects as controls. Peripheral blood plasma before any treatment measures was considered. cfDNA was extracted using a commercial kit, and PSA levels were measured by ELISA. The ANOVA test was used to compare the average serum level of PSA and plasma concentration of cfDNA between the groups. The correlation between variables was measured by the Pearson test.

The subgroups consisted of 50 patients with localized prostate cancer, 26 patients with metastatic prostate cancer, 50 patients with BPH, and 10 healthy subjects; the average concentrations of cfDNA in these subgroups were 15.04, 19.62, 9.51, and 8.7 ng/μl, respectively. According to p < 0.0001 obtained from multivariate test, there was a significant difference between all the groups.

Our findings indicated significant differences between cfDNA levels of patients with localized and metastatic prostate cancer, and differences of these two groups from BPH and healthy cases show the importance of this biomarker in non-invasive diagnostic procedures.