EIT Health innovation project works on early detection of aggressive prostate cancer
Early in 2018, the actor and TV presenter Stephen Fry underwent surgery for prostate cancer after it was detected during a routine visit to his doctor for a winter flu injection. A subsequent health check revealed that he had high prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels. When prostate cancer is diagnosed, it’s given a Gleason score to rate the aggressiveness of the condition, with treatment then offered accordingly.
EIT Innovators Award winner Martin Steinberg believes that this testing procedure is failing men around the world, however, both in not diagnosing prostate cancer accurately enough, and also forcing many to undergo extremely uncomfortable and potentially dangerous biopsies.
The Stockholm3 test significantly improves the diagnostics of prostate cancer. It was proven in a study with nearly 60 000 men who had not been diagnosed with prostate cancer that was published in The Lancet Oncology. In later clinical studies, the Stockholm3 test has been shown to identify twice as many aggressive prostate cancers while reducing the risk for biopsy by half, compared to current clinical practice with PSA.
The test, which is now undertaken in Sweden, Norway and Finland, has allowed the company to successfully license the process across the Nordic Countries, and plans are now underway to broaden testing to cover Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and the UK.
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