Formal discussant of the poster presented by Cullen et al at the ESMO Congress, Mark A. Rubin, MD, of Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, said the Oncotype DX Genomic Prostate Score could be used to measure disease aggressiveness in paraffin-embedded prostatectomy and biopsy samples and should find use in the setting of active surveillance.

“The poster describes a unique cohort in the U.S. Army—African Americans, who tend to be understudied,” he said. “The study cohort included 20% who were African American, which gets around the problem of equal access to health care for different racial groups. The important finding of this study is that using a score based on 17 genes, the assay can identify men with aggressive disease.”

Dr. Rubin continued, “This study is a nice example of biomarker development. The investigators paid careful attention as to how predictive this biomarker was in univariate and multivariate analyses.”

A significant association was shown between Genomic Prostate Score and biochemical recurrence as well as aggressive pathology at surgery. “Also, no dramatic differences were observed between whites and African Americans,” he noted.

“This study demonstrates in a large population with high ethnic diversity that the [Genomic Prostate Score] has a strong predictive ability to identify patients with high-risk disease. This suggests that we should start using these types of tests and that they should gain clinical access,” Dr. Rubin concluded. ■

Disclosure: Dr. Rubin reported no potential conflicts of interest.