Jason Scovell, MD, on clinical utility of IsoPSA across racial groups

IsoPSA demonstrated comparable or superior diagnostic performance in Black and non-White men, underscoring its clinical utility in the detection of clinically significant prostate cancer across racial groups.¹

These data were shared during the 2025 American Urological Association (AUA) Annual Meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada. In a recent interview with Urology Times®, co-author Jason M. Scovell, MD, detailed the background and key findings from the study.

He explained, “We thought that any test that is on the market that might help physicians decide whether or not to treat, biopsy, [or] diagnose prostate cancer, it's important to know whether or not it performs similarly across racial backgrounds. That was the impetus for this study, was to try to figure out whether or not there are racial disparities with how this test performs, or if this has actual, real generalizability across different patient groups.”

Scovell is a urology resident at Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio.

In total, the study included 871 patients, of whom 770 were White, 85 were Black, and 101 were Non-White.

Data showed that when using an IsoPSA cutoff of 6, the negative predictive value exceeded 90% across all racial groups. The authors also reported, “Positive predictive value and area under the curve were higher for Black and Non-White patients compared [with] White patients.”

Based on these data, Scovell concluded, “I would be hesitant to say that it performed better. I think we need to have prospective studies to make those kinds of claims, but I do think this gives us a lot of reassurance that this is probably performing at least on par across these racial backgrounds in our cohort.”

REFERENCE

1. Haile ES, Scovell JM, Weight CJ, et al. IsoPSA and race: Improved diagnostic accuracy for Black and non-White men in prostate cancer detection. J Urol. 2025;213(5S):e1290. doi:10.1097/01.JU.0001110172.53107.6f.17