US Pharm. 2009;34:5(Oncology suppl):14. 

In a subset of prostate cancers, researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York have found a new, highly expressed gene fusion, giving rise to prospects for a more accurate urine test to detect prostate cancer. The gene fusion biomarker, known as SLC45A3-ELK4, may represent a completely new mechanism that cancer cells use to outgrow their healthy neighbors, according to study results reported in Cancer Research.

"We think this is going to be a potentially important diagnostic marker in prostate cancer," says senior author Dr. Mark A. Rubin of the Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr. Rubin's team is already working with a company to develop a urine test for prostate cancer using a chromosome-based gene fusion that the team discovered earlier. Dr. Rubin anticipates that the newly discovered SLC45A3-ELK4 gene fusion may be added to that urine test.