Prediction Medicine: Biomarkers, Risk Calculators and Magnetic Resonance Imaging as Risk Stratification Tools in Prostate Cancer Diagnosis

Abstract

This review discusses the most recent evidence for currently available risk stratification tools in the detection of clinically significant prostate cancer (csPCa), and evaluates diagnostic strategies that combine these tools. Novel blood biomarkers, such as the Prostate Health Index (PHI) and 4Kscore, show similar ability to predict csPCa. Prostate cancer antigen 3 (PCA3) is a urinary biomarker that has inferior prediction of csPCa compared to PHI, but may be combined with other markers like TMPRSS2-ERG to improve its performance. Original risk calculators (RCs) have the advantage of incorporating easy to retrieve clinical variables and being freely accessible as a web tool/mobile application. RCs perform similarly well as most novel biomarkers. New promising risk models including novel (genetic) markers are the SelectMDx and Stockholm-3 model (S3M). Prostate magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has evolved as an appealing tool in the diagnostic arsenal with even stratifying abilities, including in the initial biopsy setting. Merging biomarkers, RCs and MRI results in higher performances than their use as standalone tests. In the current era of prostate MRI, the way forward seems to be multivariable risk assessment based on blood and clinical parameters, potentially extended with information from urine samples, as a triaging test for the selection of candidates for MRI and biopsy.