Is Urinary Sarcosine Useful to Identify Patients With Significant Prostate Cancer? The Trials and Tribulations of Biomarker Development

摘要: One year ago, Sreekumar and colleagues used ‘‘metabolomic profiling’’ to identify sarcosine, a metabolite of the amino acid glycine, as biomarker for prostate cancer (PCa) [1]. Furthermore, they provided preliminary evidence that sarcosine can be functionally implicated in invasion motility PCa cell lines androgen receptor v-ets erythroblastosis virus E26 oncogene homolog (avian) (ERG) affect metabolic pathway toward sarcosine. The paper resulted considerable enthusiasm scientific community among potential patients [2]. It was particularly interesting urinary levels were elevated with metastatic disease. clear limitation small selected cohort samples analyzed, need independent confirmation larger cohorts expressed by experts field In this issue European Urology ,t he first study validate role diagnosis is reported [3]. comprised 106 men PCa, 22 whom excluded biopsy (post–digital rectal examination urine samples), 24 healthy volunteers who second-morning samples. Sarcosine measured supernatant (after centrifugation) gas chromatography–mass spectroscopy (GC-MS) normalized creatinine. authors provide parameter (sarcosine/creatinine) cannot diagnose (the expression seems lower PCa) does not predict histologic grade corresponding biopsy. Thus, from validation value