| RESEARCH ARTICLE |
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| Year : 2003 | Volume
: 19
| Issue : 2 | Page : 120-124 |
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Effect of urinary retention on the levels of prostate specific antigen (PSA) and prostatic acid phosphatase (PAP) in prostatic disease
R Chawla1, Rebecca Abraham1, U Arora1, Kim Mammen2
1 Department of Biochemistry, Christian Medical College, Ludhiana, India
2 Department of Surgery, Christian Medical College, Ludhiana, India
Correspondence Address:
R Chawla
Department of Biochemistry, Christian Medical College & Hospital, Ludhiana - 141 008
India
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None  | Check |
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In recent years, prostate specific antigen (PSA) has established itself as the most useful marker for adenocarcinoma of the prostate and has almost replaced the total acid phosphatase and prostatic acid phosphatase (PAP) for screening, diagnosis and monitoring the prostate carcinoma patients. The PSA levels also rise in benign hyperplasia of prostate (BPH) but to a lesser extent and high values are usually diagnostic of malignant disease. The present investigation was conducted to study the relevance of PAP estimation with or without PSA in prostatic disease particularly in the context of hospitalized patients with retention of urine. Levels of the 2 markers were estimated in 132 patients with prostatic disease and results correlated with histological findings. BPH was detected in 112 patients whereas 20 patients were diagnosed with adenocarcinoma (ADCA) of prostate. Majority of the patients in our study were referred from private clinics and 66.1 % of BPH and 50% of ADCA patients presented with acute urinary retention. Mean PSA and PAP levels in adenocarcinoma group were significantly higher (292.7 and 117.35 ng/ml, respectively) than in BPH group (7.05 and 1.92 ng/ml, respectively). It was observed that PSA levels were raised in BPH patients with urinary retention as compared to those with no retention. There was, however, no significant change in PAP levels in these patients. There was a very good correlation between the values of tumor markers (correlation coefficient: 0.86) in all the patients. Therefore, PAP is still a very good tumor marker of prostatic disease with almost comparable efficiency to that of PSA in differentiating the malignant from the benign disease. It appears to be particularly important in hospitalized patients with acute urinary retention as catheterization appears to raise the levels of PSA but not those of PAP. |
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