Prostate Cancer Biomarkers

Prostate cancer biomarkers can help assess cancer risk, refine decisions about further testing, characterize disease, and support treatment planning or follow-up. This category provides clear, evidence-based guidance on the blood, urine, tissue, genetic, and imaging markers used across different stages of prostate cancer evaluation. Explore how the PSA test is interpreted, including normal ranges, elevated results, screening considerations, and benign causes of a high PSA. Learn how additional measurements such as PSA density, PSA velocity, free PSA, and the Prostate Health Index (PHI) can provide more context when PSA results alone do not give a clear answer. The category also covers newer risk-assessment tools and molecular biomarkers, including 4Kscore, PCA3, SelectMDx, and combined prostate cancer biomarker panels. Readers can learn how urine gene markers and multivariable scores may help estimate the likelihood of clinically significant prostate cancer and inform discussions about MRI or biopsy. For more advanced disease assessment, topics include PSMA as an imaging and therapeutic target, HRR gene testing involving BRCA1, BRCA2, ATM, CHEK2, PALB2, and other DNA-repair genes, as well as the historical role of prostatic acid phosphatase (PAP). Together, these resources explain what each prostate cancer biomarker measures, when it may be used, what abnormal results can mean, and why results must be interpreted alongside imaging, examination findings, medical history, and other clinical information.