PTEN expression clinically useful in assessing risk of prostate cancer recurrence: Study

Myriad Genetics, Inc. (Nasdaq:MYGN) today said results from a recent study indicate that expression of the PTEN gene may be clinically useful in assessing a man's risk of prostate cancer recurrence after radical prostatectomy.

The PTEN gene is one of the most important tumor suppressor genes discovered to date and is mutated in a large number of cancers at a very high frequency. Details of the study were presented today at the 2010 meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) in Washington D.C. The presentation is entitled: "PTEN Expression Predicts Biochemical Recurrence in Prostate Cancer," and the abstract (Number: 1186) is available on the AACR website at www.aacr.org.

The study examined prostate tumor tissue from 132 patients for which 5-year follow-up data were available following prostatectomy surgery (removal of the prostate gland and some surrounding tissue). PTEN protein expression was determined by immunohistochemisty (IHC), and was predictive of biochemical recurrence of prostate cancer in this patient group (p-value = 0.0046). In addition, the analysis of the PTEN gene and the loss of PTEN function was predictive of patient survival outcome at a statistically significant level after adjusting for tumor stage (p-value = 0.009), suggesting that PTEN status provides additional prognostic information not otherwise available to physicians.  

"These exciting scientific findings provide further evidence of the important role the PTEN gene plays in prostate cancer," commented Jerry Lanchbury, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer at Myriad Genetics. "PTEN also shows promise in numerous other cancer types and we look forward to future studies that will further extend this gene's potential clinical utility."