Prostate cancer is a bimodal disease with aggressive and indolent forms. Current prostate-specific-antigen testing and digital rectal examination screening provide ambiguous results leading to both under-and over-treatment. Accurate, consistent diagnosis is crucial to risk-stratify patients and facilitate clinical decision making as to treatment versus active surveillance. Diagnosis is currently achieved by needle biopsy, a painful procedure. Thus, there is a clinical need for a minimally-invasive test to determine prostate cancer aggressiveness. A blood sample to predict Gleason score, which is known to reflect aggressiveness of the cancer, could serve as such a test.
Up to 25% of chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients eventually develop hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), a disease with poor prognosis unless detected early. This study identifies a blood-based RNA biomarker panel for early HCC detection in CHB.