Australian researchers say they've found a new marker for identifying aggressive prostate cancer.
"Men who have low levels of a marker called AZGP1 in the prostate at the time of [prostate removal] surgery have a greatly increased risk of developing metastatic cancer," Sue Henshall, leader of the prostate cancer research group at the Garvan Institute in Sydney, said in a prepared statement.
"This means two things: that these men could benefit from more aggressive treatment such as radiotherapy or chemotherapy around the time of surgery when they still have potentially curable cancer; and that patients with a low risk of developing metastatic disease will have the option of deferring treatments that have a negative impact on quality of life," Henshall added.
The study was published in the Oct. 4 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
The next step of this research is to study the association between AZGP1 levels and metastatic cancer in prostate cancer patients who don't have surgery, the researchers said.