The Reporter: February 1997, Vol.8, No.1
Research Notes
Gene Identified for Earlier Detection of Prostate Cancer

The gene known as PTI-1, first identified in 1995 by principal investigator Dr. Paul B. Fisher, P&S professor of clinical pathology in pathology and urology, and his colleagues, has been confirmed as associated with prostate cancer and has potential use in identifying earlier detection and staging methods for the disease. Those findings were published in January in the journal Cancer Research.

Dr. Fisher's research team found that PTI-1 can detect a single prostate cancer cell in 100 million normal cells, indicating that the gene is an extremely sensitive detector of prostate cancer. The findings are important because current prostate cancer detection methods cannot easily differentiate between prostate cancers confined to the prostate gland and those with metastatic potential.