{"id":5801,"date":"2025-01-08T11:52:49","date_gmt":"2025-01-08T11:52:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/?p=5801"},"modified":"2025-01-08T11:55:37","modified_gmt":"2025-01-08T11:55:37","slug":"new-prostate-cancer-test-cuts-biopsies-50-us-real-world-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/new-prostate-cancer-test-cuts-biopsies-50-us-real-world-use\/","title":{"rendered":"New prostate cancer test “cuts biopsies by 50%” in US real-world use"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kearney Urology Center, a specialist clinic in Nebraska, USA, has reported a 50 per cent reduction in biopsies since adopting a new blood test for prostate cancer. The reduction is credited to the adoption of the EpiSwitch\u00ae<\/sup> PSE, which has helped reduce the high number of false positives associated with the standard prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test.<\/p>\n

EpiSwitch is the culmination of a ten-year British collaboration between Imperial College, Imperial NHS Trust, University of East Anglia and Oxford Biodynamics, itself a spin off from Oxford University.<\/p>\n

There is currently no NHS prostate cancer screening programme in the UK<\/a>. The UK National Screening committee advises against a national screening programme for prostate cancer due to the low sensitivity of the PSA test; approximately 15 per cent of men who do have prostate cancer do not have a raised PSA level.<\/p>\n

Guidance for primary care is provided through the Prostate Cancer Risk Management Programme, and men over 50 (or over 45 for men at higher risk) are eligible to ask for a PSA test from their GP, however GPs are not recommended to proactively engage men in PSA testing, in part due to the test\u2019s low sensitivity and tendency to produce false positive results. As many as three quarters of men with a high PSA do not have cancer. This means a significant number of men undergo the pain and potential side effects of unnecessary biopsies.<\/p>\n

EpiSwitch PSE increases the accuracy of the PSA test from 55 per cent to 94 per cent and cuts false positives from 75 per cent to just 7 per cent.<\/p>\n

Dr Alexandre Akoulitchev, CSO at Oxford BioDynamics,\u00a0sad: \u201cHaving first demonstrated high accuracy of detection of prostate cancer in the NHS PROSTAGRAM trial in the UK, the EpiSwitch PSE test is today undergoing fast adoption in the US, where it is reimbursed by Medicare and other insurers. PSE leads to a significant reduction of biopsies and overtreatments in the real-world practice of US clinics. There is much value in this test, as recognised by clinical and private health-care institutions in both the US and UK today. Extending access to the general public in the UK would be subject to the NHS and National Screening Committee.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Garrett Pohlman, Urologist at Kearney Urology Center, said: \u201cI cannot imagine running my practice without EpiSwitch PSE; it\u2019s a game changer. EpiSwitch increases the accuracy of the PSA test from 55 per cent to 94 per cent and cuts false positives from 3 in 4 to less than 1 in 10. Since adopting this test, I have cut the number of biopsies in half, allowing men who have tested negative for prostate cancer to avoid the pain and potential side effects of an unnecessary intervention.\u201d<\/p>\n

EpiSwitch is available privately from Goodbody Clinic and The London Clinic, the private hospital which diagnosed King Charles\u2019 cancer when he was admitted for treatment to his prostate. In the US, the test is reimbursed under its own reimbursement code by several US insurers including Humana, UnitedHealthcare, Medicare and Optum Health. EpiSwitch PSE is not currently available on the NHS.<\/p>\n

According to a Prostate Cancer Research report: \u201cThis (EpiSwitch) test combines the PSA test with a DNA test, resulting in substantially improved accuracy. Additionally, the test is minimally invasive and has the potential to reduce or eliminate the downsides of the PSA test, such as the high rate of false positives. The timing is ideal to explore innovative screening strategies and consider their benefits to patients, their loved ones and society as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mathias Winkler, Consultant Urologist and Surgeon at Charing Cross Hospital and Imperial College London, added: \u201cThe PSA test turns up very few cases of cancer and huge numbers of men are subjected to MRI scans and biopsies, as well as the worry that goes with that, and then it turns out they don\u2019t have cancer.<\/p>\n

“PSE is a diagnostic prostate cancer test with unprecedented accuracy. Nine of 10 cancers are found compared to 3 of 10 with PSA alone. Likewise, false-positive results are reduced avoiding unnecessary anxiety and expense.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Test has demonstrated 94 per cent accuracy in identifying prostate cancer, compared to 55 per cent from traditional PSA tests, along with significant reduction in false positives. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":5802,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,25,62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-news","category-secondary-care"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5801"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5806,"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5801\/revisions\/5806"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}