Abstract
BackgroundThere is currently no consensus on the correlations between androgen concentrations in prostate tissue and blood and stage and pathological grade of prostate cancer. In this study, we used a newly-developed ultra-sensitive liquid-chromatography tandem mass spectrometry method to measure testosterone (T) and dihydrotestosterone (DHT) concentrations in blood and needle biopsy prostate specimens from patients with prostate cancer.MethodsWe analyzed androgen levels in 196 men diagnosed with prostate cancer. All patients had undergone systematic needle biopsy, and an additional needle biopsy from the peripheral zone was conducted for the simultaneous determination of T and DHT. We analyzed the relationships between T and DHT levels in tissue and blood and Gleason score, clinical stage, and percentage of positive biopsy cores, using multivariate analysis.ResultsThe median T and DHT levels in blood were 3551.0 pg/mL and 330.5 pg/mL, respectively. There was a strong correlation between serum T and DHT. The median T and DHT levels in prostate tissue were 0.5667 pg/mg and 7.0625 pg/mg, respectively. In multivariate analysis, serum prostate-specific antigen and tissue T levels were significantly associated with poor prognosis; high T levels in prostate tissue were significantly related to high Gleason score (p = 0.041), advanced clinical stage (p = 0.002), and a high percentage of positive biopsy cores (p = 0.001).ConclusionsThe results of this study indicate that high T levels in prostate tissue are related to high Gleason score, advanced clinical stage, and a high percentage of positive biopsy cores in patients with prostate cancer. T level in needle biopsy specimens may therefore be a useful prognostic factor in prostate cancer patients.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1471-2407-14-717) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
There is currently no consensus on the correlations between androgen concentrations in prostate tissue and blood and stage and pathological grade of prostate cancer
There have been few reports regarding the correlation between prostate cancer aggressiveness and androgen concentrations measured in smaller prostate tissue samples, such as those obtained by needle biopsy
Androgen levels in blood and prostate tissue obtained by needle biopsy The androgen levels in prostate tissue and peripheral blood are shown in Table 2. serum T levels were almost 10-fold higher than DHT levels in peripheral blood, Table 2 Androgen levels in blood and prostate tissue of patients with prostate cancer (n = 196)
Summary
There is currently no consensus on the correlations between androgen concentrations in prostate tissue and blood and stage and pathological grade of prostate cancer. We used a newly-developed ultra-sensitive liquid-chromatography tandem mass spectrometry method to measure testosterone (T) and dihydrotestosterone (DHT) concentrations in blood and needle biopsy prostate specimens from patients with prostate cancer. Several previous studies have reported blood and prostate tissue levels of testosterone (T) and dihydrotestosterone (DHT) in patients with prostate cancer, but these studies have involved small sample sizes, and several have measured the levels using radioimmunoassays (RIAs), which require a large amount of tissue (≥20 mg) for androgen measurement [1,2]. There have been few reports regarding the correlation between prostate cancer aggressiveness and androgen concentrations measured in smaller prostate tissue samples, such as those obtained by needle biopsy
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