Purpose: Early detection of prostate cancer by prostate specific antigen testing is subject to ongoing controversy. Thus, practical tests to improve or replace prostate specific antigen would be highly desirable. In diagnostic studies promising results were shown for myeloid related protein-14 in serum and urine. However, confirmation in longitudinal population based studies is needed.
Materials and methods: Incident prostate cancer cases (32) and controls (74) matched by age were identified during a 2-year followup of a longitudinal study. The group of cases was further complemented by a sample of 24 prostate cancer cases recruited before initiation of treatment from a clinical study. A commercially available test was used to analyze serum and urinary myeloid related protein-14 in blinded fashion.
Results: In contrast to prostate specific antigen, serum and urinary myeloid related protein-14 could not significantly discriminate between prostate cancer cases and controls.
Conclusions: In our study neither serum nor urinary myeloid related protein-14 proved suitable to distinguish prostate cancer cases from controls. Overall myeloid related protein-14 performed much worse than prostate specific antigen and it does not seem useful to reduce false-positive findings of prostate specific antigen in the controversial range of 4 to 10 ng/ml.