Data recently presented by Myriad Genetics’ prostate cancer prognostic test Prolaris is getting healthcare professionals and patients interested in learning more about how the multi-gene prognostic test can be used to gauge prostate cancer aggressiveness. Myriad Genetics presented data at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting from five studies involving Prolaris, all suggesting that the Prolaris score, calculated from expression of cell cycle progression genes, can accurately determine which prostate cancer patients are at risk of aggressive prostate cancer and which have indolent disease. Prolaris analyzes 31 cell cycle progression genes plus 15 housekeeper genes, and has been investigated in 9 clinical studies.

The results of these studies show that Prolaris “does predict outcomes in multiple cohorts in diverse clinical settings, provides independent information beyond classical clinicopathologic variables, and can help differentiate aggressive or indolent cancers” according to Jack Cuzick of the Wolfson Institute on Preventive Medicine in London, in a presentation on Prolaris at ASCO. Cuzick also noted that, in these studies, Prolaris was a “highly significant predictor of outcome”.

Likely due to this presentation at ASCO and other recent medical conventions, prostate cancer experts said they’re seeing goring interest in Prolaris from fellow colleagues and their patients.

Read GenomeWeb’s full article here