Improving Prostate Cancer Screening Accessibility, Population Health 

January 06, 2022 - To improve population health, Cornell University researchers have developed a highly portable and rapid prostate cancer screening kit. The kit is intended to indicate early warning signs to populations with higher incidences of prostate cancer and those with limited access to healthcare. 

According to researchers, the proof-of-concept test is inexpensive and uses a test strip and a small cube-shaped 1.6-inch reader to quantify a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) from a drop of blood. 

“We’ll be able to take a drop of blood in a community setting such as a barbershop and be able to deliver results in 10 to 15 minutes right there, which can indicate when somebody needs to come in for further tests,” the paper’s senior author Saurabh Mehta, MD, said in a press release.  

“It’s creating that first point of contact that hopefully builds rapport and brings health care services to the people at the point of need,” Mehta said. 

The prostate cancer screening kits come with a test strip, like those in at-home COVID-19 antigen or pregnancy tests. Users can draw a drop of blood and apply it to the test strip, and in about 15 minutes, two lines appear on the strip.  

While pregnancy tests indicate a positive or negative result, the cube reader calculates and displays a measurement of PSA concentration in the blood.  

“Another advantage of test strips is that the technology to make them really cheap or mass produce them has been around for many years,” Srinivasan said. 

Srinivasan estimated that PSA test kits could be mass-produced and sold for only a few dollars each.  

While other PSA test kits have been developed and approved by the FDA, research indicates they are less portable and more expensive to own and operate, creating health disparities.  

Black populations frequently do not have access to prostate cancer PSA screening. According to data analytics, they are more likely to be diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer, contributing to disproportionately high mortality rates.  

PSA testing has significantly declined among all ethnic and racial groups in the United States over the last decade, with a steeper decline among Black populations aged 40 to 54 years. According to researchers, close to 43 percent of Black men aged 41 and older have never had a PSA test.  

“There is a need for increasing access to PSA screening among African American men who are otherwise not able to get tested periodically, and one of the ways is we take the test to them at various community settings,” Srinivasan said. 

Improving the accessibility of PSA tests is an essential step in bettering population health outcomes among ethnic and racial groups.