March 2012

Eddy S. Leman, PhD, et al., published in 2007 a study about what they believed to be a highly promising new prostate cancer biomarker, early prostate cancer antigen 2, or EPCA-2 (EPCA-2: a highly specific serum marker for prostate cancer. Urology. 2007;69:714–720). In my November 2009 letter to CAP TODAY, I criticized this biomarker, saying that close examination of the study revealed methodological and interpretative shortcomings. One of the original authors, Robert H. Getzenberg, PhD, provided a rebuttal in the same issue. Dr. Leman and Dr. Getzenberg and their coauthors have now retracted their 2007 paper (Urology. 2012;79:490), explaining that the article contains findings that may be unreliable.

Eletherios P. Diamandis, MD, PhD
Mount Sinai Hospital and
University Health Network
Professor and Head, Division of
Clinical Biochemistry
Department of Laboratory Medicine
and Pathobiology
University of Toronto