New technologies can potentially save lives by helping identify prostate cancer earlier, and transforming the way doctors detect and track cancerous cells.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men after skin cancer, according to the American Cancer Society. More than 300,000 new cases of prostate cancer have been diagnosed this year, with over 36,000 deaths. About 1 in 8 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their lifetime while 1 in 44 die of the disease, the ACS estimates.

A Swedish test called Stockholm3 proved more accurate than traditional blood testing in detecting aggressive prostate cancer using a combination of proteins, genetic markers, family history and clinical factors like age history and prior test results. In a study published June 23 in the Annals of Internal Medicine, Swedish researchers showed the test was more accurate than measuring a protein called prostate specific antigen or PSA, the current standard.

They said the Stockholm3 test could reduce the number of unnecessary MRIs and biopsies performed during the diagnostic process.

The study has some limitations, said co-author Hari Vigneswaran. Stockholm3 is still being tested and evaluated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and it is not currently available in the United States.

PSA testing has been the standard approach to prostate cancer screening since the 1990s, he said, despite its “well-documented limitations.”

“It leads to invasive and costly follow-up testing, contributes to over-diagnosis of non-aggressive cancers and, most importantly, it misses a substantial share of aggressive disease,” Vigneswaran told Live Now FOX.

Evidence shows Black men are twice as likely to die from prostate cancer than white men, prompting Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott to join the ZERO Prostate Cancer campaign in June to improve screening and education in Black communities.

This large disparity in prostate cancer deaths reflects less access to high-quality treatment options, according to the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network. Black men have equivalent or higher prostate cancer-specific survival rates when they are treated within an equal-access healthcare system, and all men have a nearly 100% survival rate if the cancer is detected before it spreads.

Better detection and tracking

Two Johns Hopkins researches developed the FDA-approved Pylarify imaging test, a new technology to detect and track prostate cancer.

Martin Pomper, former Johns Hopkins radiologist and now professor and chair of radiology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, discovered a compound that could identify prostate cancer-specific proteins throughout the body. Robert Dannals, professor of radiology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, developed detection techniques as well as ways to efficiently produce the compound for broad distribution.

Since being approved in 2021, the imaging agent has helped clinicians identify the location and extent of prostate cancer in more than 200,000 cancer screenings each year, leading to more informed treatment decisions for hundreds of thousands of patients.

Dannals and Pomper were awarded the Bay-Dole Coalition’s American Innovator Award on June 3 for their breakthrough.

During his acceptance remarks, Dannals emphasized that the achievement was the result of decades of collaboration.

“Innovation is often celebrated as an achievement of an individual,” Dannals said in a Johns Hopkins release. “But every idea that I’ve had and every idea that our group had has been shaped by colleagues, collaborators, mentors, family, and friends who challenged, supported, and inspired us along the way.”

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