This Blood Test Can Predict Your Survival of Advanced Prostate Cancer

(HealthDay News) — A simple blood test may help doctors decide the best way to treat a man with advanced prostate cancer. A phase 3 clinical trial has shown that circulating tumor cell (CTC) counts can predict which men are likely to respond to standard treatment and live longest and which might benefit from more aggressive new drug trials. With Black men are more likely than men of other races to be diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer, this test could improve their chances of survival. CTCs are rare cancer cells that tumors shed in the blood. They’ve been looked at before in prostate cancer, but only in its later stages. “No one, until now, has looked at whether CTC counts can be used right at the beginning, when a man first presents with metastatic prostate cancer, to tell us whether he’s going to live a long time or short time, or whether or not he will progress with therapies,” said lead study author Dr. Amir Goldkorn, associate director of translational sciences at USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center in California. His team found that men with higher blood levels of CTCs had shorter median survival times and a greater risk of...