A new blood test made by Johnson & Johnson unit Veridex may give doctors a much clearer picture of a patient’s prostate cancer and the way it responds to treatment.

 

The CellSearch test works by counting the number of circulating tumor cells in the bloodstream or CTCs. Counting these cells helps review the development of prostate cancer, as well as checks how well a patient is responding to chemotherapy.

 

Writing in the Feb. 11 issue of The Lancet Oncology, Howard Scher, M.D., of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and colleagues said the test “shows that the CTC counts can be used to help determine an individual’s prognosis, particularly when the counts are high. And it also helps in terms of understanding if the treatment is working.”

 

Once the prostate cancer has reached its final stage, requiring chemotherapy, one of the problems many doctors have to deal with is uncertainty about the effectiveness of the treatment, John Neate, chief executive of The Prostate Cancer Charity said. Current tests “work reasonably well but something better is needed.” Apparently, the CellSearch is that “something better,” according to results of the study published in The Lancet Oncology.

 

For it, Prof. Scher and colleagues assessed the association between CTC number and survival in 164 patients starting out on chemotherapy. The CellSearch test apparently worked better than a standard test that looks at prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels. Levels of PSA may shoot up when prostate tumors grow or spread.

 

Prostate cancer is diagnosed in approximately 220,000 US men annually and about 28,000 die of it, which makes it the most common cancer and second-leading cancer killer among men.