Journal List > Korean J Urol > v.49(2) > 1005040

Lee, Kwak, Choi, Choi, and Lee: New Thresholds for Prostate-specific Antigen Velocity for Prostate Cancer Screening in Korean Patients Younger than 60 Years Old

Abstract

Purpose

We identified new thresholds for prostate-specific antigen velocity (PSAV) for screening of prostate cancer in Korean patients younger than 60 years old based on PSA serial data obtained from our hospital's health promotion center.

Materials and Methods

The study population was retrieved from 10,011 patients, 40 to 79 years old, with 2 or more PSA values within five years who visited our hospital's health promotion center between January 2002 and December 2006, including 100 patients with prostate cancer. These subjects were divided into 2 age groups, 40-59 years old and 60-79 years old, and their PSAV were calculated as the rate of PSA change using the first and last values only. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to analyze the performance of PSAV in the screening of prostate cancer, and we developed new PSAV thresholds by comparing sensitivity and specificity at different PSAV levels.

Results

Overall prostate cancer prevalence was 0.6% (45) in younger (40-59 years old) patients and 2.1% (55) in older (60 to 79 years old) patients. The median PSAV in the normal control group and the cancer group were 0.047ng/ml/year vs 0.877ng/ml/year in younger patients (p<0.0001) and 0.067ng/ml/year vs 0.642ng/ml/year in older patients (p<0.0001). For younger patients, the sensitivity and specificity were 55.6% and 99.2% at PSAV 0.75ng/ml/year, but decreasing the PSAV cut-points to 0.35ng/ ml/year improved sensitivity to 78% for cancer detection in this age group.

Conclusions

The previous PSAV threshold for prostate biopsy, 0.75 ng/ml/year or greater, probably underestimate cancer risk in younger Korean men. Decreasing PSAV thresholds to 0.35ng/ml/year would improve screening sensitivity.

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Table 1.
Demographics, PSA level, and PSAV in the <60 year-old group and the ≥60 year-old group
Variable <60 years old group p-value ≥60 years old group p-value
Normal control Prostate cancer Normal control Prostate cancer
Age median (year) 51 (40-59) 55 (40-59) 0.008 64 (60-79) 65 (60-79) 0.029
PSA median (ng/ml) 1 (0.28-3.00) 3.85 (0.40-15.70) <0.0001 1.2 (0.27-4.53) 4.2 (1.60-13.30) <0.0001
PSAV median (ng/ml/year) 0.04 (?0.25-0.44) 0.877 (?6.23-4.07) <0.0001 0.067 (?0.04-0.68) 0.642 (?0.46-3.53) <0.0001
Total number 7,344 (99.4%) 45 (0.6%) 2,567 (97.9%) 55 (2.1%)

PSA: prostate-specific antigen, PSAV: prostate-specific antigen velocity

Table 2.
The sensitivity and specificity of PSAV in the <60 year-old group and the ≥60 year-old group at different PSAV thresholds
Variable <60 years old group ≥60 years old group
PSAV (ng/ml/year) Sensitivity (%) Specificity (%) Sensitivity (%) Specificity (%)
0.1 91.1 63.2 94.5 60.8
0.3 78.0 94.7 81.8 88.1
0.35 78.0 96.2 76.4 91.1
0.4 71.0 97.1 70.9 92.7
0.5 64.4 98.1 60.0 95.3
0.6 62.6 98.7 52.7 96.7
0.75 55.6 99.2 41.8 97.9

PSAV: prostate-specific antigen velocity

Table 3.
The performance of PSAV (ng/ml/year) threshold in the <60 year-old group and the ≥60 year-old group
Age (year) Cancer group (n) Normal control group (n) PSAV cut-points (ng/ml/year) Cancers detected (%)
<60 45 7,344 ≥0.35 35 (77.8)
≥0.75 25 (55.6)
≥60 55 2,567 ≥0.35 44 (80.0)
≥0.75 24 (43.6)

PSAV: prostate-specific antigen velocity

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