Dr. Shore Discusses Glypican-1 as a Biomarker for Prostate Cancer

Neal D. Shore, MD, FACS, medical director, Carolina Urologic Research Center, managing partner, Atlantic Urology Clinics, discusses glypican-1 as a biomarker for prostate cancer.

Glypican-1 is a new receptor found to be involved in many different growth processes of malignant cells, says Shore. It is demonstrable in blood, urine, serum, and plasma. He and his colleagues conducted a preliminary pilot study of 300 patients, and they were able to find a cut point, where they could see a very high specificity for demonstrating patients who had cancer versus those who did not.

Traditionally, other biomarkers have had a fairly high sensitivity for true positives or true negatives, but they do not have the specificity at the same time, adds Shore.