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Beyond PSA testing for prostate cancer

Doug Brooks, Ian N Olver and Adrian J Esterman
Med J Aust 2018; 208 (10): . || doi: 10.5694/mja18.00324
Published online: 4 June 2018

Better biomarkers are needed to ensure early and accurate detection and prognosis of prostate cancer

Prostate cancer is now the most common cancer diagnosed in men in Australia,1 and Australia has one of the highest incidence rates of prostate cancer in the world, with an estimated age-standardised rate of 119.2 per 100 000 men.2 Before 1960, the primary diagnostic test for prostate cancer was the prostatic acid phosphatase test. This was eventually replaced in the 1980s by the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test.


  • 1 University of South Australia Cancer Research Institute, Adelaide, SA
  • 2 Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine, James Cook University, Cairns, QLD


Correspondence: Doug.Brooks@unisa.edu.au

Competing interests:

Doug Brooks is developing cancer biomarkers for commercialisation with Envision Sciences Pty Ltd.

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