KIST·Asan Hospital develops technology to diagnose prostate cancer with urine…commercialized in 2022

Input 2020.12.24 12:00 | Revision 2020.12.24 14:36

KIST Dr. Lee Kwan-hee, Professor Jeong In-gap, Seoul Asan Hospital Joint Research
Blood diagnostic accuracy 30%… Less cancer-related substances in urine
High-sensitivity sensor improves detection performance and AI analyzes it precisely

A domestic research team has developed a technology that can diagnose prostate cancer with 95.5% accuracy in 20 minutes with only a urine test. It is expected to be commercialized as early as 2022 after clinical trials.

The Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) announced on the 24th that the research team of Dr. Lee Kwan-hee Biomaterials Research Center has developed a new cancer diagnosis technology that combines ultra-sensitive biosensor and artificial intelligence (AI) with the research team of Professor Jeong In-gap of Seoul Asan Medical Center.

Prostate cancer still has a blood test diagnosis technology, but the accuracy is only 30%. For a diagnosis close to 100%, a biopsy, an invasive method, is required. Urine also contains several types of prostate cancer biomarkers (substances in the body that determine whether or not the disease has occurred), but the amount was not used for diagnosis.

The research team developed an ultra-sensitive biosensor that can detect trace amounts of biomarkers in urine. Due to the characteristics of the biomarker itself, it is difficult to increase the diagnostic accuracy by more than 90% even if it is detected with a sensor. Instead, the research team detected four types of biomarkers at the same time and let AI analyze them in a complex manner. AI learned the difference between the amount of four types of biomarkers that patients and the general public have through machine learning.

When the research team used this technology to analyze urine samples from 76 patients or the general public, they succeeded in distinguishing patients with an accuracy of 95.5%.

As the next step, the research team plans to carry out clinical trials with 500 subjects (patients or the general public) to further improve accuracy and commercialize them in 2022-2023.

Professor Jeong said, “If it is commercialized, it will be possible to dramatically reduce medical expenses and the burden of medical staff by minimizing unnecessary biopsy and treatment.” Dr. Lee expected that “it could be used for precise diagnosis of other carcinomas.”

The research results were published in the latest issue of ACS Nano, an academic journal published by the American Chemical Society (ACS).