Prostate stem cell antigen (PSCA) mRNA expression in peripheral blood in patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia and/or prostate cancer

The aim of this study was to determine whether detection of prostate stem cell antigen (PSCA) expression in BPH might be associated with the subsequent presence of Prostate cancer (PCa) and also to determine whether detection of PSCA expression has potential for prognosis in PCa. This study was comprised of 112 PCa patients, 111 BPH patients and 120 control subjects. We employed reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) to detect PSCA mRNA-bearing cells in peripheral blood. PSCA mRNA was detected in the peripheral blood of 71.4 % PCa patients and in 13.5 % of patients with BPH by RT-PCR. PSCA was positive in 80 % of high-grade diseases compared with 20 % of low-grade diseases (P = 0.01). Whereas only 38.8 % of prostate-confined diseases were PSCA positive, 61.2 % of extraprostatic diseases were PSCA positive (P < 0.001). Patients with a lymphovascular invasion of tumor emboli tended to be PSCA positive (P = 0.02). BPH patients with RT-PCR PSCA positive were significantly more likely to develop prostate cancer (OR = 16, 95 % CI = 8.1–31.6, P < 0.001). In conclusion, RT-PCR PSCA positivity is significantly associated with the Gleason score, LV tumor emboli and whether or not the tumor was organ confined. In this study, RT-PCR PSCA detection may be a promising tumor marker of diagnostic and metastasis detection for patients with prostate cancer. Also, it may be an important test for predicting BPH patients who are at high risk of subsequent cancer development.