A University of Auckland research study shows that New Zealand men are being diagnosed with prostate cancer later in life at a higher prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level and higher disease grade compared to men in the United States.
The study was conducted by Dr Nishi Karunasinghe and colleagues at the Auckland Cancer Society Research Centre at the University’s Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences compared prostate cancer data from New Zealand and US.
Dr Karunasinghe says that several factors could be behind the discrepancy, including lower levels of PSA screening, delayed referral to specialist care and lower subsequent biopsies on those with elevated PSA levels, all of which warrant attention from the New Zealand health authorities.
FMHS 20180702 Prostate cancer release (AK and NK)
Read the full journal article at PLOS One.
Reference: Karunasinghe N, Ambs S, Wang A, Tang W, Zhu S, Dorsey TH, et al. (2018) Influence of lifestyle and genetic variants in the aldo-keto reductase 1C3 rs12529 polymorphism in high-risk prostate cancer detection variability assessed between US and New Zealand cohorts. PLoS ONE 13(6): e0199122. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0199122