CAP TODAY Pathology/Laboratory Medicine/Laboratory Management
Identifying aggressive prostate cancer
MDxHealth SA announced positive results from a study designed to identify patients with aggressive prostate cancer, presented at the Jan. 30–Feb. 1 ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium in San Francisco.
In this study, the prognostic value of the epigenetic status of five genes (GSTP1, APC, RASSF1, RARB, and LGALS3) in 84 prostatectomy samples with different Gleason scores was evaluated. The results of a hierarchical clustering analysis showed that low gene methylation levels were detected in the vast majority of patient samples with GS6 and GS7 (3+4) prostate cancer. In contrast, respectively 81 percent and 91 percent of the GS7 (4+3) and GS ≥ 8 samples fell into the category with intermediate to high methylation levels.
VIDAS Galectin-3 validated
In a clinical research study published online in Clinica Chimica Acta, elevated galectin-3 levels in previously collected blood samples, measured using the bioMérieux VIDAS Galectin-3 assay, were reported to be significantly predictive of fatal cardiovascular events and severity of heart failure among the 137 patients diagnosed with chronic heart failure who were tested (dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cca.2013.12. 017).
The prognostic information provided by the VIDAS assay in this study was found to be complementary and additive to that obtained by measuring BNP, NT-proBNP, and proBNP. The predictive value of galectin-3 levels was demonstrated to be independent of other key clinical parameters, such as impaired kidney function. When evaluated for analytical performance, measurement values obtained with the VIDAS Galectin-3 assay were found to be in agreement with those obtained with the BG Medicine Galectin-3 test.