Use of human prostate-specific antigen in monitoring prostate cancer

The newly reported human prostate-specific antigen (PA) is a specific histiotypic product of human prostate. With the use of a sensitive enzyme immunoassay, the circulating PA in prostatic cancer patients has been evaluated clinically. In 96 patients with advanced stage of disease (D2) and receiving chemotherapies, the pretreatment serum PA levels were found to be of prognostic value with regard to the patient survival. Ten patients with metastatic prostate cancer were monitored for more than 32 weeks by 183 serial PA values and were found generally to respond to the treatment. Additionally, in another group of 32 patients who underwent curative therapies for localized prostate cancer, 161 serum samples were evaluated during periods of 12 to 114 weeks (average 56 weeks). Of these patients, five developed metastases during follow-up, and all were shown to exhibit increasingly elevated PA values, either corresponding to or preceding the clinical diagnosis of disease recurrence. These results suggest that PA is a new marker with potential value to merit further clinical study.