PSA may help breast cancer diagnosis

A team of Taiwanese scientists has found that PSA levels were more than three times higher in women with breast cancer than other women.

Besides prostate gland, which is present just in man, many other organs secrete PSA including the breast, said researchers at the National Yang-Ming University.

However, PSA’s blood levels in healthy women are so low that usual methods cannot detect the protein and scientists should apply ultrasensitive tests.

According to their report published in Analytical Chemistry, Dr Chin Chou and colleagues used fiber optic technology to develop a biosensor, which can detect PSA in the serum of women with and without breast cancer.

The new biosensor for PSA may be more sensitive and specific than existing biomarkers for detecting breast cancer and predicting its recurrence, the scientists wrote.

"Furthermore, these values may compare favorably with the sensitivity and specificity of the current screening methods for breast cancer such as clinical examination … and mammogram," the researchers reported.

The scientists hope that further sophisticated studies would support their findings and the new technique may be widely used in the future for the diagnosis of breast cancer.