Carcinoma of the prostate is a commonly occurring malignant tumour in men and is a common cause of death. Early diagnosis and therapy is crucial for the successful treatment of this serious disease. It is therefore desirable to develop a sufficiently reliable, minimally invasive, and inexpensive method of diagnosing prostate cancer, which would usefully supplement the diagnostic techniques currently in common use (digital rectal examination, measuring the prostate-specific antigen level in serum, transrectal ultrasonography). This article describes in detail the methodology of a new technique for intensive training aimed at developing the dog's olfactory abilities to diagnose carcinoma of the prostate in men while the animal is still young. At the same time, the rate of success in establishing the diagnosis of prostate cancer in men using this method was evaluated based on the identification of urine samples from patients in whom the disease was histologically confirmed. The results of our study demonstrate that the diagnosis of prostate cancer in men using the olfactory abilities of a specially trained dog can be considered a reliable, non-invasive, and relatively inexpensive method of diagnosing carcinoma of the prostate. Urology, tumour, prostate gland, auxiliary methods of examinationCarcinoma of the prostate is the most common non-cutaneous malignant tumour among men in a number of the world's developed countries and, after carcinoma of the lung, it is the most common solid tumour in the male population of the United States (Jemal et al. 2009). Despite the progressive development of diagnostic methods (Vyhnánková 2015) in the area of diagnosing cancer, this disease is still one of the major causes of death in humans. Early detection and prompt commencement of therapy are crucial for the successful treatment of carcinomas and an appropriate way of reducing the economic burden of treatment and the mortality of the disease (Sonoda et al. 2011). The basic diagnostic methods used to diagnose prostate cancer include digital rectal examination (DRE), measuring the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level in serum, and transrectal ultrasonography (TRUS) (Gerber and Chodak 1991). When patients are making decisions about undergoing preventative or early examination, the degree to which the procedure carried out is invasive and painful is quite important. It is therefore desirable to develop a method of diagnosing prostate cancer which is sufficiently reliable, but at the same time minimally invasive and not too expensive.In our study we focused on the development of diagnostics for prostate cancer in men from urine samples using the olfactory abilities of the dog. The aim of the study was to introduce a new technique for the intensive development of the dog's olfactory abilities to diagnose carcinoma of the prostate in men while the animal is young; to evaluate the success rate in establishing the diagnosis of prostate cancer in men on the basis of indicating urine

BACKGROUND:The major advantages of urine-based assays are their non-invasive character and ability to monitor prostate cancer (CaP) with heterogeneous foci. While the test for the prostate cancer antigen 3 (PCA3) is commercially available, the aim of our research was to test other putative urine markers in multiplex settings (AMACR (a-methylacyl-CoA racemase), EZH2 (enhancer of zeste homolog 2), GOLM1 (golgi membrane protein 1), MSMB (microseminoprotein, b), SPINK1 (serine peptidase inhibitor) and TRPM8 (transient receptor potential cation channel, subfamily M, member 8)). METHODS:Expression of the candidate biomarkers was studied in sedimented urine using quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction in two sets of patients with and without restriction on serum PSA levels. RESULTS:We confirmed that PCA3 is an independent predictor of cancer in the patients without restriction of serum PSA values (set 1, n ¼ 176, PSA ¼ 0.1-587 ng ml -1 ). However, AMACR was the only parameter that differentiated CaP from nonCaP patients with serum PSA between 3 and 15 ng ml -1 (set 2, n ¼ 104). The area under curve (AUC) for this gene was 0.645 with both sensitivity and specificity at 65%. Further improvement was achieved by multivariate logistic regression analysis, which identified novel duplex (TRPM8 and MSMB), triplex (plus AMACR) and quadriplex (plus PCA3) models for the detection of early CaPs (AUC ¼ 0.665, 0.726 and 0.741, respectively). CONCLUSIONS:Novel quadriplex test could be implemented as an adjunct to serum PSA or urine PCA3 and this could improve decision making for diagnostics in the case of 'PSA dilemma' patients.

No abstract

The objective of the study was to determine whether the temperature of urine samples from patients with prostate cancer or the temperature of urine samples from men not suffering from this condition affects the efficacy of prostate cancer detection performed by a specially trained dog using its olfactory abilities. A total of 218 urine samples, divided into two sets differing in temperature, were tested for male prostate cancer by a dog sniffing urine samples. In group 1 (urine temperature 15–23 °C), 120 urine samples were examined by a sniffer dog, of which 57 samples were positive (from the group of men with established prostate cancer) and 63 samples were negative (from men not affected by prostate cancer). In group 2 (urine temperature 2–14 °C), 98 urine samples were examined by a sniffer dog, of which 51 were positive (from the group of men with established prostate cancer) and 47 were negative (from men not affected by prostate cancer). The results of our study demonstrated no link between the efficacy of male prostate cancer detection performed by a specially trained dog using its olfactory abilities from a urine sample and the temperature range from 2–23 °C (P > 0.05).