Abstract
We detected prostate-specific antigen (PSA) mRNA in the peripheral blood of patients with prostate cancer using reverse transcription and a polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), and evaluated the usefulness of this detection method to search for metastasis of prostate cancer. Peripheral blood from 40 patients with prostate cancer, 22 patients with benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH), and 7 females were analyzed for PSA mRNA using RT-PCR. In one stage A prostate cancer patient PSA mRNA was not detected (RT-PCR negative) (0 %) . Among the 14 stage B prostate cancer patients, PSA mRNA was detected in one (7.1%) (RT-PCR positive) . All of the 10 stage C prostate cancer patients were RT-PCR negative (0 %) while 13 out of 15 state D prostate cancer patients (86.7%) were RT-PCR positive. One of the 22 BPH (4.5%) patients was RT-PCR positive and the 7 females were RT-PCR negative. RT-PCR for PSA mRNA identified 13 of 15 patients with metastatic bone disease (86.7% sensitivity) and it was negative for 24 of 25 patients with no metastasis (96% specificity) . The usefulness of RT-PCR for PSA mRNA as the modality in searching for metastasis was supported from this follow-up study.
