Portugal Travel

February 12, 2009

Discovery of a new indicator will help doctors to distinguish between tumors

Study 'promising' not only for diagnosis but to distinguish the more aggressive cases of prostate cancer, was a urologist at the University of Coimbra rated this Thursday the discovery of a new indicator of cancer, writes to Lusa.

One piece of research published in the journal Nature reports on the identification of a molecule, called sarcosina that to be detected in urine may help doctors to distinguish between tumors of the slow evolution that require quick and aggressive treatment.

Useful for the prognosis

Deasy Chinniayan, University of Michigan (USA) and colleagues found a much higher sarcosina where more aggressive disease and found that just add to that substance prostatic cell cultures to develop into invasive cancer cells.

For the teacher Arnaldo Figueiredo, secretary general of the Portuguese Association of Urology (APU), this study is very preliminary, still require confirmation, "but very promising, not in terms of diagnosis, but to clarify the aggressiveness of disease, or the prognosis.

In their view, the problem is less capacity for diagnosis, but to 'distinguish which cancers are more aggressive and, therefore, that those who deserve treatment early.

The carcinoma of the prostate is an increasing prevalence with age. In classical studies, autopsies performed on men with 70 years who died from trampling or infarction of myocardium showed foci of cancer in about 40 percent of cases, where between 50 and 60 years in this case only 15 percent.

For this the urologist at the University of Coimbra Hospital and professor of the Faculty of Medicine of the same institution of higher education, "more important than how many patients have histological carcinoma of the prostate, is to determine what really require aggressive therapy and which may simply be monitored.

3 percent of risk

The overall risk to the birth of a man will die of cancer of the prostate is 3 percent, while one in nine men receive a lifetime diagnosis of a disease, which "means there is more men die with carcinoma postato than the carcinoma of the prostate, stressed.

The study now published shows not a substitute for the PSA, an indicator of disease in the urine that allows for early diagnosis, "but for his addition, to refine the men with carcinoma of the prostate that have a pattern that makes biological provide a rapid evolution of the disease.

Is that - saw the urologist - "the current therapeutic modalities for this type of cancer are not safe, but even if they were, if there were ways to detect and treat all cases, we are talking about a disproportionate percentage of men in relation to real impact of the disease in terms of mortality".

Cancer of the prostate is the most common cancer in men and second leading cause of death by cancer. According to the APU, die each year in Portugal 1800 men because of this disease.