Introduction:

To date, no consensus has been reached on the best approach for screening and early detection of Prostate Cancer (PCa) in the population. However, there are programs recommending the use of the rapid prostate-specific antigen test for the detection of PCa without a correlation analysis versus the serum test.

Objective:

To identify the correlation between rapid and serum prostate specific antigen tests in the Mexican population.

Methods:

A descriptive, cross-sectional and retrospective study was carried out, under a non-probabilistic convenience sampling from May 25 to July 13, 2017. The correlation coefficients of point biserial (rpb) and phi (rphi) were calculated.

Results:

One thousand six hundred thirty five (1,635) records were included, mainly from Mexico City and the State of Mexico (n= 1,398; 85.5%, 95% CI 81-89.9). The average age was 51 years (SD= 7.68). The mean value of serum prostate antigen was 1.49 ng/ml (SD= 1.91). The proportion of men with positive rapid test (n=60; 3.7%; 95% CI 2.9-4.6) was lower (p= 0.0415) compared to the proportion of patients with a serum test ≥ 4 ng/ml (n= 85; 5.2%; 95% CI 4.1-6.3). The number of double negative cases was 1,530 (93.6%; CI95% 92.3-94.6) and of double positives was 40 (2.4%; CI95% 1.7-3.2). The point biserial and phi correlation coefficients showed low correlation between the rapid test and the serum prostate antigen test (rpb= 0.469; p < 0.001; r2= 0.2199 and rphi= 0.540; p < 0.001; r2= 0. 2916).

Conclusions:

The rapid prostate-specific antigen test is a convenient tool for prostatic alteration detection programs in primary care medical units, where the serum test cannot be performed, however, as it is a test with low sensitivity and with low correlation coefficient with respect to serum prostate-specific antigen testing, this is an important point to consider when designing prostate cancer early detection programs.

        · resumen en Español     · texto en Español     · Español ( pdf )