better than PSA testing !?

Sounds very promising for the future diagnosis of cancers early on

Thanks for sharing that.

Looking at the earlier article that one links to, the Stockholm3 test sounds intriguing:

- urine test (rather than blood test)
- fewer false positives than PSA

Unlike so-called "PSE," it's an entirely new test rather than just PSA with an extra epigenetic test tacked on.

On the downside,

- very expensive, so not practical yet for routine screening of the general population
- tested mainly just on Swedish men

The hope is that future research confirms the biomarkers work for a broader population, and develops an affordable test for widespread deployment.

(Note that the research used an older type of AI, called "machine learning": you train the model by giving it many cases and telling it "this is/isn't cancer", then test it on another set of cases to see if its model has learned to recognise patterns and give correct answers. It's not the "generative AI" that's so controversial these days, which is basically just a stochastic parrot.)

Looks like another PSE type test using blood biomarkers, PSA, etc. The UK NICE (part of NHS) writeup is almost 4 years old. It lists a 350 pound price for the test. The other reference one may be from the biotech that is trying to market the test. Text below is from that site.

Stockholm3 is a blood-based test that integrates protein biomarkers, genetic risk profiling, and clinical data to assess a man’s risk of harboring aggressive prostate cancer. Stockholm3 has been evaluated in prospective and population-based screening studies with a total of more than 90,000 men. In a European screening cohort (N=12,670), Stockholm3 has showed 90% sensitivity and 89% specificity for detecting aggressive prostate cancer (Grade Group ≥2 cancer). PSA ≥3 ng/ml showed 74% sensitivity and 90% specificity, while PSA ≥4 ng/ml showed 52% sensitivity and 95% specificity in the same cohort.[15, 16] Stockholm3 has been shown to enable detection of aggressive cancers while reducing unnecessary biopsies in men with elevated PSA levels compared to PSA-based referral pathways.[15-18] Long-term follow-up from the population-based European STHLM3 screening study suggests that cancers identified at low PSA levels but elevated Stockholm3 scores may be biologically aggressive and clinically meaningful. Men diagnosed under these conditions had an approximately ninefold higher risk of high-risk biochemical recurrence (an indicator of progression to metastatic and potentially lethal disease) after curative treatment compared with men with higher PSA but low Stockholm3 risk (HR 8.8; 95% CI: 1.06–72).[14]
https://www.stockholm3.com/usa
The UK reference from 2022 about this test:
https://www.nice.org.uk/advice/mib303/resources/stockholm3-for-prostate-cancer-screening-pdf-2285967566184901

@northoftheborder I assume those Swedish guys took everything off but their black socks for the test ?! ;=)

@jim18 Ah, thanks. The Fox News article linked from the one in the OP didn't mention a blood component. My bad for trusting a somewhat iffy news source without independent confirmation.

So the real story is that PSA is a bit of a blunt instrument (as we already know), and before doing an invasive biopsy, we should do a second string of non-invasive epigenetic testing first.

Note that a very high PSA (e.g. 50 or 500) is almost guaranteed to be caused by prostate cancer. It's only when you have a slightly-elevated PSA like, say, 10, when it's sort of a coin toss whether there's cancer involvement or not. That would be the situation that these epigenetic secondary screening tests are addressing, and they could prevent some unnecessary biopsies.

Time will tell if this new approach to prostate cancer screening is the vast improvement it purports to be. If it is then, it will be a game changer as to the early detection of this cancer. I’m for anything that can save lives.

@xahnegrey40 wrote "I assume those Swedish guys took everything off but their black socks for the test ?! ;=)"

Black socks *with* sandals, no? 🙂

@jim18
The first link to http://www.stockholm3.com/usa doesn’t work.

It says they couldn’t find the page we were looking for.

It also doesn’t show that it’s available in the USA.

Stockholm3 is currently available in the following markets: The UK, Switzerland, Germany and the Nordic countries. For information on how to order the test, please contact:

Europe

Germany: Labor Dr. Wisplinghoff, e-mail: labor@wisplinghoff.de; telephone: +49 (0) 221 940 5050

Switzerland: labor team, e-mail: info@team-w.ch; telephone: +41 71 844 45 45

UK: The Doctors Laboratory, e-mail: stockholm3@tdlpathology.comTelephone +44(0) 207 307 7373

Nordics (Sweden, Norway, Finland): A3P Lab Customer Service, Uppsala, Sweden. E-mail: customersupport@a3p.com, telephone: +46 (0) 10-182 33 01

All other markets

A3P Lab customer service, Uppsala, Sweden.
E-mail: customersupport@a3p.com, telephone: +46 (0) 10-182 33 01

Andreas Hoel - VP Marketing and Sales.
E-mail: andreas.hoel@a3p.com, telephone: +45 2597 4250

@grandmira Since the article talks about reducing biopsies, I'd guess that Stockholm3 (like PSE) is about reducing false positives rather than false negatives.

Since PSA testing is cheap, while PSE and Stockholm3 are expensive (patents and all that), it might make sense still to use PSA for general population screening, then when there's a possible positive, use these new tests as non-invasive ways to confirm before escalating to a biopsy (just as we already use MRI, PSMA-PET, etc).

It's not like the bad old days, when a PSA level ≥ 10 meant an automatic biopsy; there's more nuance now.

@jeffmarc
The site added the /usa probably by detecting request was from usa so /usa/usa does not work. The link will and is from the biotech that puts out the test. This page has disclaimer that it is not approved by FDA and a link at the bottom right For Healthcare Professionals that has a lot of information about test and validation of the same.
https://www.stockholm3.com/