Prospective study of value of telomerase-based CTC detection for diagnosis of prostate cancer

PSA is a valuable tumor marker for prostate cancer diagnosis. However, PSA may be abnormally elevated due to benign prostatic hyperplasia, especially in the ‘gray area’ of 4-10 ng/ml. A prospective pilot study n China found that detection of telomerase-positive circulating tumor cells could be a valuable method for distinguishing prostate cancer from benign prostatic disease, especially in de PSA area of 4-10 ng/ml, with AUC 0.541 for PSA and 0.825 for CTCs.