Key points from article :
A new blood test called EpiSwitch PSE has dramatically improved the accuracy of prostate cancer screening, leading to a 50% reduction in unnecessary biopsies at the Kearney Urology Center in the US. Traditional prostate-specific antigen (PSA) tests have a high false positive rate—up to 75% of men with elevated PSA levels don’t actually have cancer, often resulting in painful and avoidable biopsies. EpiSwitch PSE boosts the accuracy of PSA testing from 55% to 94%, reducing false positives from 75% to just 7%, offering a safer and more precise alternative.
This breakthrough test is the product of a decade-long UK collaboration involving institutions such as Imperial College, Imperial NHS Trust, the University of East Anglia, and Oxford BioDynamics. Dr. Alexandre Akoulitchev, Chief Scientific Officer at Oxford BioDynamics, highlights that EpiSwitch PSE has already led to significant reductions in biopsies and overtreatments in real-world settings. Although the test is available privately in the UK and reimbursed by several insurers in the US, it is not yet offered on the NHS, with wider access depending on approval by UK health authorities.
Experts including Dr. Garrett Pohlman from Kearney Urology Center and Mathias Winkler from Imperial College praise the test’s high diagnostic accuracy, which finds nine out of ten cancers compared to three out of ten with PSA alone. This advancement not only improves patient outcomes but also helps avoid unnecessary anxiety, procedures, and healthcare costs, marking a significant step forward in prostate cancer diagnosis.
