Non-invasive prostate cancer test boosts early treatment

Along with ExoDX, such newer tests include: SELECTMDX. This urine test assesses a man's risk for aggressive prostate cancer to help identify which patients may truly benefit from a

biopsy. A 2019 study published in the _Journal of Clinical Oncology_ found that it was more useful than the Prostate Health Index in picking up aggressive cancers that required biopsy.

ISOPSA. This blood test, invented by the Cleveland Clinic and FDA approved in late 2019, identifies molecular changes in PSA that can indicate cancer, says Eric Klein, M.D., chair of

Cleveland Clinic's Glickman Urological & Kidney Institute. It's been shown to reduce unnecessary prostate biopsies by about 45 percent. MIR SCIENTIFIC'S SENTINEL TEST.

This urine-based test, which became available this year, can categorize patients into one of four groups: no cancer, low-risk cancer, intermediate-risk cancer or high-risk cancer. If you

have an elevated PSA, Klein recommends following up with any of the above tests, including one of the older ones. (It may boil down to which tests are available at your medical center, and

what's covered by your insurance.) If you have a test done and it's negative, you can just be followed closely with annual PSA screening. If it's positive, the next step

should be a prostate MRI as well as a biopsy. An MRI is important, Klein explains, because it can show if the cancer has spread “right outside the prostate into, say, the seminal vessels.”

Ripken, for one, credits the ExoDx prostate test with convincing him to go ahead and have the biopsy. “With the uncertainty of what a PSA result means, it's easy to just dismiss it and

say you'll come back in six months or a year and look at it again,” he explains. But once he got his results back, “it really gave me a different perspective. It gave me confidence that

a biopsy was the right course of action.” Today, Ripken is back to doing all his regular activities, including biking, with no side effects. “My story had a happy ending: We caught it

early, and my life went back to how it was before,” he says. “All men should be able to have that."