Bio-Techne is touting a new clinical study that indicates that its exosome-based, noninvasive urine prostate test, ExoDx Prostate test (EPI), correlates with post-prostatectomy pathology outcomes.
In men with an EPI score below 15.6, the test could prevent those at low risk from proceeding to radical prostatectomy, according to a study published January 27 in the World Journal of Urology.
To explore the applicability of the test for men with low-risk disease considering active surveillance, researchers tested 2,066 subjects. When EPI scores were evaluated for men classified as grade group 1 (GG1) on biopsy, those men who were upgraded to grade group 3 (≥ GG3) had significantly higher EPI scores compared to men who remained in GG1 after radical prostatectomy.
However, neither prostate-specific antigen blood testing nor any other risk calculators discriminated between these groups. In this cohort, zero cases were upgraded to ≥ GG3 when the EPI scores were below the cut-point of 15.6 resulting in a high negative predictive value (100%) for ruling out ≥ GG3, according to the company.