Autoantibodies to prostasomes as new markers for prostate cancer

Prostate cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-related death among men. Given the varying clinical course and the long natural history of the disease, it is important to have good diagnostic and prognostic markers. Prostate specific antigen (PSA) is currently the best marker for the detection of prostate cancer, but in many cases it does not reveal whether metastases have appeared. Since metastases of prostate cancer release prostasomes, which are immunogenic secretory granules of both normal and neoplastic prostate cells, we checked whether anti-prostasome antibodies will appear when the cancer is metastasing. In a pilot study, all 13 patients with serum PSA between 50-500 mug/L had anti-prostasome antibodies, while 39 healthy controls with low PSA values showed background values. There was no overlapping, i.e. the upper range value of controls did not reach the lower range value of patients.