Medical practitioners in Barbados believe they have made a major breakthrough in the early detection of prostate cancer, the most common on the island, which also accounts for the highest number of cancer deaths annually.
They can now “predict” who is likely to develop the disease even if there are no signs or symptoms and there is a negative Prostatic Specific Antigen (PSA) test, based on a newly discovered DNA molecular signature specific to prostate cancer, that can be detected from a drop of blood.
These are the preliminary findings from a study conducted by the Barbados Cancer Society and the Massachusetts-based Yale University and Wren Laboratories.
The study, which was done between 2020 and 2021 comprised 554 men and is believed to be the largest in the world on men of African descent. Similar studies were done on a smaller scale in the United States and Europe. (SAT)
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