Serum proteomic patterns for detection of prostate cancer.

Pathologic states within the prostate may be reflected by changes in serum proteomic patterns. To test this hypothesis, we analyzed serum proteomic mass spectra with a bioinformatics tool to reveal the most fit pattern that discriminated the training set of sera of men with a histopathologic diagnosis of prostate cancer (serum prostate-specific antigen [PSA] > or =4 ng/mL) from those men without prostate cancer (serum PSA level <1 ng/mL). Mass spectra of blinded sera (N = 266) from a test set derived from men with prostate cancer or men without prostate cancer were matched against the discriminating pattern revealed by the training set.