Detection of circulating tumor cells in men with localized prostate cancer

Purpose: Using prostate-specific antigen (PSA) mRNA as a marker for prostatic epithelial cells, we have devel-oped a sensitive technique that involves reverse tran-scription and polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) to de-tect circulating tumor cells in the peripheral blood of men with prostatic carcinoma (CaP). Patients and Methods: A sensitive RT-PCR assay was used to evaluate the peripheral blood of 135 men with a history of CaP. Fourteen men with benign prostate dis-ease, many of whom had elevated serum PSA levels, were used as a control group. Results: All patients with benign prostate disease had a negative result in the RT-PCR assay. Of particular inter-est was a subgroup of 65 patients with clinically local-ized CaP evaluated before definitive local therapy. Fiv