The Stockholm3 prostate cancer test is effective for diverse ethnic groups and could reduce unnecessary biopsies

The Stockholm3 blood test is equally precise at detecting prostate cancer in different ethnic groups, and it could reduce unnecessary biopsies by about half, researchers reported on July 23, 2024 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

“Asian, Black, and Hispanic men are underrepresented in prostate cancer (PCa) clinical trials. Few novel prostate cancer biomarkers have been validated in diverse cohorts. We aimed to determine if Stockholm3 can improve prostate cancer detection in a diverse cohort,” the authors said.

“The study demonstrates that the Stockholm3 test is just as effective on an ethnically mixed group as it is on a White, Swedish population,” added lead author Hari T. Vigneswaran, MD and PhD candidate at the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden.

The investigators included 2,129 biopsied subjects from the USA and Canada. Of these, 16 per cent were Asian, 24 per cent were African-American, 14 per cent were Latino/Latin American and 46 per cent were White American.

All subjects had been sent for a prostate biopsy due to an elevated PSA score or other suspicious finding.

Prior to the biopsy, a blood test was taken along with data pertinent to the Stockholm3 test. Stockholm3 testing was blinded to the biopsy results.

The analysis revealed clinically relevant prostate cancer in 29 per cent of the men.

The analysis also showed that the Stockholm3 test has the potential to reduce the number of unnecessary biopsies by almost half when compared to the PSA test (673 as opposed to 1,226), and it is equally effective at detecting all clinically relevant cases. “The results were similar across the different ethnic groups. Compared with PSA, Stockholm3 could reduce benign and ISUP 1 [lowest grade cancer] biopsies by 45% overall and between 42% and 52% across racial and ethnic subgroups.

The authors concluded, “In a substantially diverse population, Stockholm3 significantly reduces unnecessary prostate biopsies while maintaining a similar sensitivity to PSA in detecting csPC [clinically significant prostate cancer].”