Ijaz Hussain Shah, Mohammad Khalid, Safdar Hassan Sial.
Metastatic Prostate Cancer; Is it justified to determine serum prostatic acid phosphatase?.
Professional Med J Jan ;8(2):264-7.

OBJECTIVE: To find out whether prostatic acid phosphates still have a place as a tumor marker in metastatic prostate cancer. DESIGN: Prospective comparative study. SETTING: Department of Radiotherapy and Oncology, Punjab Medical College/Allied Hospital, Faisalabad. PERIOD: From March 1999 to Jan 2001. PATIENTS & METHODS: Parallel determination of serum prostatic specific antigen (PSA) and serum prostatic acid phosphatase (PAP) was done in forty-eight patients with metastatic prostate cancer. Patients with normal PSA and raised PAP were placed in Group-I and patients with normal PAP but raised PSA were placed in Group-II. Discordant results were picked up for analysis. RESULTS: In Group-I, no patient could be grouped because none of the patients had normal PSA and raised PAP. In Group-II, 8 patients could be grouped because 8 out of 48 patients had normal PAP and raised PSA. CONCLUSION: It is both safe and cost effective to abandon PAP as a tumor marker for prostate cancer.

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