Singapore, April 4, 2008: China Medical Technologies, a medical device company that develops, manufactures and markets advanced in-vitro diagnostic products and high intensity focused ultrasound tumor therapy systems, has completed the development of Prostate Cancer FISH Detection Kit, a prostate cancer-specific molecular diagnostic test based on the Fluorescent in situ Hybridization (FISH) technology. The company expects to launch the kit in July 2008.

 

The kit is designed to detect TMPRSS2 and ETS gene fusions in prostate pathological tissues. Deregulation of ETS family members through fusions with TMPRSS2 are implicated as cancer-causing gene rearrangements in prostate cancer, which can aid in the detection of early prostrate cancer. The kit consists of three dual-color probe sets, namely TMPRSS2/ETV1 probes, TMPRSS2/ERG probes and TMPRSS2/ETV4 probes.

 

 Studies have shown that TMPRSS2/ETS gene fusions occur in approximately 80 percent of prostate cancer cases, indicating that the application of TMPRSS2/ETS gene fusions as specific biomarkers can significantly increase the sensitivity for prostate cancer diagnosis. In addition, it has been reported that the TMPRSS2/ERG fusion may have prognostic significance.

 

Prostate cancer is one of the most frequent cancers among men in China and many other countries. In China, prostate-related diseases affect about 6070 percent of men over 60 years of age of which the population is about 80 million. Among them, patients with prostate enlargement who need surgical therapy have the opportunity to benefit from the use of the kit to resolve the diagnosis of prostate cancer.