Purpose: Aberrant gene promoter methylation profiles have been well-studied in human prostate cancer.Therefore, we rationalize that multigene methylation analysis could be useful as a diagnostic biomarker. We hypothesize that a new method of multigene methylation analysis could be a good diagnostic and staging biomarker for prostate cancer. Experimental Design:Totestourhypothesis,prostate cancer samples (170) andbenignprostatic hyperplasia samples (69) were examined by methylation-specific PCR for three genes: adenomatous polyposis coli (APC), glutathione S-transferase pi (GSTP1), and multidrug resistance 1 (MDR1). The methylation status of representative samples was confirmed by bisulfite DNA sequencing analysis.We further investigated whether methylation score (M score) can be used as a diagnostic and staging biomarker for prostate cancer.The M score of each sample was calculated as the sum of the corresponding log hazard ratio coefficients derived from multivariate logistic regression analysis of methylation status of various genes for benign prostatic hyperplasia and prostate cancer.The optimal sensitivity and specificity of the M score for diagnosis and for staging of prostate cancer was determined by receiver-operator characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. A pairwise comparison was employed to test for significance using the area under the ROC curve analysis. For each clinicopathologic finding, the association with prostate-specific antigen (PSA) failure-free probability was determined using Kaplan-Meier curves and a log-rank test was used to determine significance.The relationship between M score and clinicopathologic findings was analyzed by either the Mann-Whitney U test, Kruskal-Wallis test, or the Spearman rank correlation test. Results: The frequency of positive methylation-specific PCR bands for APC, GSTP1, and MDR1 genes in prostate cancer samples was 64.1%, 54.0%, and 55.3%, respectively. In benign prostatic hyperplasia samples, it was 8.7%, 5.8%, and11.6%, respectively.There was a significant correlation of M score with high pTcategory (P <0.001), high Gleason sum (P <0.001), high preoperative PSA (P = 0.027),andadvancedpathologic features.Forallpatients,the Mscorehadasensitivityof75.9% and a specificity of 84.1% as a diagnostic biomarker using a cutoff value of1.0. In patients with low or borderline PSAlevels (<10.0 ng/mL), the Mscorewas significantlyhigherinprostate cancers thanin benignprostatichyperplasias (2.635 F 0.200 and 0.357 F 0.121, respectively). ROC curve analysis revealed that the Mscore hada sensitivity of 65.4% and a specificity of 94.2% when1.0 wasused as a cutoff value. Forallpatients, Mscore candistinguishorgan-confined (VpT 2 ) fromlocallyadvanced cancer (zpT 3 ) with a sensitivity of 72.1% and a specificity of 67.8%. Moreover, consideringpatients with PSA levels of <10 ng/mL, the M score has a sensitivity of 67.1% and a specificity of 85.7%.The ROC curve analysis showed a significant difference between M score and PSA (P = 0.010). Conclusions: This is the first report ...