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The paper that turned a protein made by the prostate into the blood test now used on millions of men a year. It showed the level tracked how much cancer there was, fell to nothing after surgery, and rose again when the cancer came back.
Thomas Stamey and colleagues at Stanford measured prostate-specific antigen and prostatic acid phosphatase by radioimmunoassay in 2,200 serum samples from 699 patients, 378 of whom had prostate cancer, and compared the two markers directly.
Prostate-specific antigen won on every axis that mattered for monitoring: it was more sensitive, it tracked tumour volume, it fell to undetectable after radical prostatectomy with a half-life of 2.2 days, and it detected recurrence. The paper's own conclusion is careful in a way the following twenty years were not: because both markers are also raised in benign prostatic hyperplasia, neither is specific. Stamey later became one of the loudest critics of the screening programme his paper enabled.
The origin of the blood test that defines how prostate cancer is found, monitored and declared to have recurred. Its strength was always monitoring a known cancer; the problems began when the same test was used to look for cancer in men who had no symptoms.
Shares Measurement of prostate-specific antigen in serum as a screening test for prostate cancer, PSA (prostate-specific antigen), Localised prostate cancer, intermediate risk, Localised prostate cancer, very low and low risk and the tag prostate-evidence.
Shares Radical prostatectomy, PSA (prostate-specific antigen), Localised prostate cancer, intermediate risk, Localised prostate cancer, very low and low risk and the tag prostate-evidence.
Shares Measurement of prostate-specific antigen in serum as a screening test for prostate cancer, PSA (prostate-specific antigen), Localised prostate cancer, intermediate risk, Localised prostate cancer, very low and low risk and the tag prostate-evidence.
Shares Prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment after the introduction of prostate-specific antigen screening, 1986 to 2005, PSA (prostate-specific antigen), Localised prostate cancer, very low and low risk, Overdiagnosis and false alarms and the tag prostate-evidence.
Shares Radical prostatectomy, PSA (prostate-specific antigen), Localised prostate cancer, intermediate risk, Localised prostate cancer, very low and low risk and the tag prostate-evidence.
Shares PSA (prostate-specific antigen), Localised prostate cancer, intermediate risk, Localised prostate cancer, very low and low risk, Localised prostate cancer, high and very high risk and the tag prostate-evidence.
Shares Radical prostatectomy, Localised prostate cancer, intermediate risk, Localised prostate cancer, high and very high risk, Overdiagnosis and false alarms and the tag prostate-evidence.
Shares Prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment after the introduction of prostate-specific antigen screening, 1986 to 2005, PSA (prostate-specific antigen), Localised prostate cancer, very low and low risk, Overdiagnosis and false alarms and the tag prostate-evidence.