BioCurex says Recaf blood test shows 90% sensitivity in detecting prostate cancer

By E. Janene Geiss

Philadelphia, July 19 - BioCurex Inc. said late Tuesday that studies of the company's Recaf blood test for prostate cancer show sensitivity was 90% with a specificity of 84% on cancerous and benign prostate cancer samples.

When the cancer samples were compared with samples from normal individuals, both the sensitivity and the specificity of the Recaf test approached 100%, according to a company news release.

The main problem in prostate cancer diagnosis is not to discriminate patients with cancer from normal individuals, but rather to discriminate between prostate cancer and benign prostate conditions.

In the set of samples tested, which comprised sera from 100 known cancer patients and 30 patients with benign lesions, the standard PSA test showed a sensitivity of 48% with 60% specificity.

This means that the standard test missed more than half the cancers and that 40% of the patients were subjected to an unnecessary biopsy of their prostate. Adding a second variant of the test called "free PSA," the specificity was increased to 70%, but doubled the cost. This also meant that 30% of patients with benign lesions would still be unnecessarily subjected to a biopsy, officials said.

Results of the study will be presented at the American Association for Clinical Chemistry annual meeting being held next week in Chicago, officials said.

The presentation will focus on results obtained with the company's Recaf test of serum samples from normal individuals, prostate cancer patients and patients with benign prostate lesions.

BioCurex has signed a licensing agreement with Abbott Laboratories for BioCurex's Recaf cancer technology. The cancer marker Recaf has emerged as a potential biomarker that may be useful in the development of new cancer diagnostics tests.

Preliminary studies from the investigators at BioCurex have reported a high level of clinical sensitivity and specificity for Recaf in many of the most common cancers, including prostate, breast, colorectal, lung and others.

BioCurex is a Richmond, B.C., biotechnology company.

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