For you, L!


CHICAGO — Prostate tumors with a distinctive four-gene "signature" are far more lethal than others, laying the groundwork for a test to predict which tumors need aggressive treatment, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.

Tests of this four-gene signature method alone accurately identified 83 percent of deadly prostate tumors from tissue samples taken in a national health study.

When they combined this method with a standard test of a prostate tumor's aggressiveness, the team accurately identified more than 90 percent of tumors that later killed patients.

"This would have 92 percent accuracy relative to what we currently have, which is at best 75 percent accuracy," said Dr. Ronald DePinho of Dana-Farber's Belfer Institute for Applied Cancer Science in Massachusetts.

"There is no question this will influence the practical management of these cases," DePinho, whose study appears in the journal Nature, said in telephone interview.

He said such a test would spare many men from unnecessary treatment for cancers that might never have killed them.

snip

Dana-Farber has licensed the technology to Metamark Genetics Inc, a Massachusetts-based company that will commercialize the test.

"The goal is to do this within about a year or maybe a bit longer than that," said DePinho, who has a stake in the company.

Read more here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41393100/ns/health-mens_health/

Thanks for posting Blue