A PSA-guided approach for a better diagnosis of prostatic adenocarcinoma based on MALDI profiling and peptide identification

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the second cause of mortality in men worldwide. The prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test is routinely adopted in diagnosis; nevertheless more reliable biomarkers are continuously under investigation by monitoring the release of molecules into the bloodstream. The serum protein profiles appear to provide cancer-specific fingerprints that help to discriminate patients (especially with low PSA level) from controls, improving the performance of existing clinical tests. Samples from healthy controls and PCa patients with low (≤4ng/mL) and high PSA (>4ng/mL) levels were analyzed by MALDI profiling, and by a multi fractionation approach coupled to ESI-MS for peaks identification. MALDI profiling achieved to detect 10 and 14 changed peaks (p-value