Vol. 6 Issue 3 Part B

Background: Prostate specific antigen (PSA) is a protein made by prostate and is produced by cancerous as well as non-cancerous cells. PSA is screening test used to detect undiagnosed prostate cancer in men. Normally it is present in small quantity with healthy prostate (<4 ng/ml) but often elevated in other prostatic lesion like BPH, Acute and Chronic prostatitis and prostatic adenocarcinoma.

Materials and Methods: Our study includes total of around 70 patient presented with complaint of dribbling of urine, increased frequency and urge incontinence on digital rectal examination (DRE). Tests were performed on random blood serum by 3rd generation ELISA (immunoassay principle).

Results: 70 patients were involved in our study among which it was found 44 had total PSA moderately elevated (4.0-10.0 ng/ml) suggesting high risk category. 16 Patients with PSA<4.0ng/ml were considered low risk. 10 Patients had low % Free PSA and were referred for biopsy to confirm prostatic malignancy.

Conclusion: PSA in the range of 4 to 10 ng/ml identified men as high risk. Most patients with PSA in this range were observed to have early stage disease, while more than half of the men with PSA levels above 10ng/ml had advanced disease. Thus, the detection of prostate cancer in its potentially curable stages requires the use of % FPSA to group individual men into low risk (high % FPSA & low Total PSA) to high risk (low % FPSA & high total PSA) to help in biopsy decisions.