Pattern of age-adjusted serum prostate specific antigen reference intervals among men in Benin City, Nigeria

Abstract

Prostate Cancer has assumed an important public health concern in Nigeria. Its incidence is anecdotally on the rise in our community and many prominent Nigerians are dying from it. The current study set out to ascertain the age adjusted prostate specific antigen (PSA) values indigenous to the local community and to confirm the relationship between PSA and age. In this study, enrollees were from a medical outreach carried out by a non-governmental agency in Benin City, Nigeria. The number of volunteers was 443 adult males. Eleven 11(2.48%) of this number were excluded from the study on account of their outlying PSA values. The mean age was 42.4years; the youngest volunteer being 18 years and the oldest, 86 years. The mean PSA value in the ≤40 year, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, and ≥70year age categories were 1.77 ng/ml, 2.09 ng/ml, 1.99 ng/ml, 2.63 ng/ml, and 2.59 ng/ml respectively. The overall mean PSA was 2.21 ng/ml, whereas the median was 2.09ng/ml. Results showed positive but weak correlation between age and PSA (R = 0.161, P < 0.01). Nonetheless, significant increases in PSA with age were reported. The current study therefore provides a set of serum PSA values that are indigenous to the local environment, which could be used as cut-off threshold for performing prostatic biopsies.

Keywords: prostate cancer, prostate specific antigen, glycoprotein, biopsy, Benin City