Circulating Prostate-Specific Antigen/CD14-Double-Positive Cells: a Biomarker Indicating Low Risk for Hematogeneous Metastasis of Prostate Cancer

Abstract
The presence of cells in the blood stream of prostate cancer patients that stain positively for both prostatespecific antigen (PSA) and for the monocyte marker CD14 seems to indicate a low risk of metastasis formation. This cellular biomarker might be helpful in the assessment of the prognosis for prostate cancer patients with organ- restricted disease. It could be used to define a subgroup of patients with a low risk of life-threatening bone metastasis, although these patients show evidence of circulating prostate cancer cells by flow cytometry ( 1 ) or PSAPCR2 ( 2 ).