Thiosulfate in urine: new hope or new failure of a biomarker for prostate cancer?

Urinary thiosulfate as failed prostate cancer biomarker – an exemplary multicenter re-evaluation study

“…A possible explanation for the six-and 50-fold higher thiosulfate concentration in PCa as compared with benign prostate hyperplasia or asymptomatic men was the increased generation of hydrogen sulfide and its following oxidation to thiosulfate [10]. In an accompanying editorial to this initial data, two authors of the present report (CS, KJ) criticized, among others, the missing comparison with other proven urine markers, such as PCA3, and suggested a re-evaluation study [11].…”

Superiority of CCL11x IL-6 over PSA in Prostate Cancer Prediction and Detection in Egyptian Patients: First Preliminary Comparative Assessment

“…Prostate cancer is the most frequent malignancy in men in the Western world. 14 This cancer is mainly detected by the determination of serum PSA. However, several studies showed the limited ability of PSA in differentiating between benign and malignant prostate diseases and between aggressive and insignificant tumors since a continuous risk of prostate cancer occurs at all PSA values.…”

The highs and lows of tumor biomarkers: lost illusions

“…Chwatko et al [12] reported in 2013 in this journal promising results of urinary thiosulfate as a biomarker of prostate cancer. In an editorial that accompanied the publication of the report by Chwatko et al Jung and Stephan [13] stressed the need for validation studies stating that "this task of the scientists in the biomarker translation process could be supported by the encouragement of scientific journals to publish also re-evaluation studies that fail to confirm original data". This is an important point since the whole system of medical publications may be biased towards publication of positive results.…”