title: EPCA2.22: A Silver Lining for Early Diagnosis of Prostate Cancer.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate whether EPCA-2 (a prostate matrix nuclear protein) can be a more helpful marker in prostate cancer diagnosis.
  
  
  METHODS
  176 patients enrolled in this study had abnormal prostate specific antigen (PSA) or digital rectal examination and were candidates for prostate needle biopsy. Blood samples were obtained from each patient prior to biopsy and the samples were frozen for EPCA-2 measurement. Patients diagnosed with cancer were assigned to the case group and those with benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH) were included in the control group. Univariate and multivariable analyses were done to assess the relationship between different independent variables with cancer diagnosis. The diagnostic power of EPCA-2 for cancer was estimated at different levels of PSA according to the ROC curve.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The mean(&plusmn; SD) age of cancer cases was 70.33(&plusmn; 9.02) years while it was 63.34(&plusmn; 9.47) years for BPH cases (P &lt; .01). EPCA-2 and PSA were also significantly different between cancer and BPH cases (P &lt; .001). The multivariable logistic regression showed that EPCA-2 has a significant relationship with cancer diagnosis (OR=1.009, P = .021). After controlling other variables following stratification for PSA, it was shown that EPCA-2 and cancer were correlated just when PSA was &gt;10 (P &lt; .001). AUC was 0.694 for cancer prediction by EPCA-2 when PSA was &gt;10 ng/mL.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  EPCA-2 has the power of differentiating BPH from cancer in prostate cancer suspects. This suggests that EPCA-2 can be helpful in diagnosing prostate cancer and can be a preventive test to avoid unnecessary biopsies considering PSA and age of the patient.&nbsp.
authors.affiliation: Urology Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran..gh_pourmand@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Gholamreza
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Pourmand
authors.affiliation: Urology Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Majid
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Safavi
authors.affiliation: Urology Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Ayat
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ahmadi
authors.affiliation: SANA Medical Laboratory, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Elaheh
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Houdeh
authors.affiliation: Urology Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Mohammad
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Noori
authors.affiliation: Urology Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Rahil
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mashhadi
authors.affiliation: Urology Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Farimah
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Alizadeh
authors.affiliation: Urology Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Elaheh
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Salimi
authors.affiliation: Urology Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Fariba
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Heydari
authors.affiliation: Urology Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Abdolrasoul
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mehrsai
authors.affiliation: Urology Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Naghmeh
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Pourmand
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000951:Antigens, Neoplasm / Q000097:blood*; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D055088:Early Detection of Cancer / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011470:Prostatic Hyperplasia / Q000097:blood / Q000175:diagnosis; D011471:Prostatic Neoplasms / Q000097:blood* / Q000175:diagnosis*
chemical_list: D000951:Antigens, Neoplasm; C542166:early prostate cancer antigen-2, human