Results of the logistic regression analysis predicting PCa diagnosis.

<p>DRE: Digital Rectal Examination; TRUS: Transrectal Ultrasonography; CI: Confidence Intervals;</p>*<p>Logistic regression analysis, p–values less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant.</p

Differences between hTERT mRNA and preoperative serum PSA levels according to prostate biopsy characteristics and final stage (adding clinical staging).

*<p>Non-parametric Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used for comparison of two medians and more than two medians, respectively.</p

Diagnostic accuracy of hTERT mRNA in comparison with a preoperative serum PSA test.

<p>PPV: Positive predictive value; NPV: Negative predictive value; CI: confidence interval; LR: Likelihood ratio.</p

hTERT mRNA diagnostic accuracy. Comparison with serum PSA.

<p>ROC curves show that plasma hTERT mRNA, but not serum PSA, discriminates between PCa patients and healthy individuals or patients with prostatitis or BPH. Plasma hTERT mRNA shows higher sensitivity (85% vs 83%), specificity (90% vs 47%), PPV (83% vs 56%), NPV (92% vs 77%) and AUC ROC (0.932 vs 0.651) than PSA with respect to PCa diagnosis. Pairwise comparison of hTERT mRNA and PSA ROC curves showed significant differences (p<0.001).</p

Flow diagram showing that PSA screening results in a high percentage of unnecessary biopsies.

<p>One hundred and five consecutive patients with elevated PSA levels underwent prostate biopsy. Forty-six of the 105 patients (44%) were diagnosed with PCa, and fifty-nine patients (56%) showed no evidence of cancer. PCa: Prostate Cancer BPH: Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia.</p

Age, preoperative serum PSA and hTERT mRNA levels of controls and patients according to histopathological findings.

*<p>Mean ±SD (Range).</p>**<p>Median (Interquartile range).</p

Kaplan-Meier analysis of time to biochemical recurrence.

<p>Kaplan-Meier curves indicate that there are significant differences in recurrence-free survival between high and low hTERT groups (A) but not between high and low serum PSA groups (B).</p