Why is this research important to Alberta?
- Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer and the third leading cause of cancer deaths in men.
- Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening has a high false positive rate making it a controversial screening tool.
- There is an urgent need for a more specific diagnostic test to improve prostate cancer outcomes.
- We propose that integrating ClarityDX Prostate into prostate cancer screening as a reflex test after elevated PSA, will benefit Albertans by:
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- Lowering healthcare costs and specialist burden
- Strengthening Alberta’s biotech sector
- Detecting aggressive prostate cancer earlier
- Reducing unnecessary procedures
- Improving patient outcomes
The work aligns with Alberta and Canada’s health innovation, precision medicine, and sustainable healthcare priorities.
What is the goal of this work? How will genomics be used?
- Support the adoption of ClarityDX Prostate in standard of care in Alberta and Canada by building the clinical and economic evidence needed to integrate ClarityDX Prostate.
- Generate clinical utility data.
- Assess clinician, patient, system and economic impact.
- Design a pathway for seamless provincial healthcare integration.
- ClarityDX Prostate is a machine-learning model that predicts the likelihood of aggressive prostate cancer and support clinician decision-making.
- Our partners include Genome Alberta, University of Alberta, Nanostics, Acute Care Alberta, Prostate Cancer Centre, Kipnes Urology Center, Lethbridge Urology Surgeons, Men’s Health Clinic Manitoba, Sinai Health System, Vancouver Prostate Center, and W21C.
- ClarityDX Prostate combines total and free PSA biomarkers with clinical information to produce a personalized risk score for aggressive prostate cancer.
What are the expected benefits, and how will the research findings be shared?
- Economic: Nanostics, the industry partner, will advance ClarityDX Prostate from TRL 8 to TRL 9, strengthening Alberta’s biotech sector and expanding access to a large national diagnostic market.
- Health: more accurate risk assessment enables earlier detection for high-risk patients, fewer unnecessary interventions, and better-informed decisions for healthcare providers. Improved health outcomes and quality of life for men at risk of prostate cancer.
- Social: faster diagnosis reduces anxiety, uncertainty, and treatment delays resulting in improvement of quality of life. Public-system adoption facilitates access to advanced prostate cancer screening testing for all Albertans.
Related Resources
Related information can be accessed through:
- Company website: Nanostics Precision Health Home Page
- Clinical trial registry: Study Details | NCT06678828 | Clinical Utility of ClarityDX Prostate | ClinicalTrials.gov
- Media article: Nanostics Launches Clinical Utility Study for Its AI-Powered ClarityDX Prostate Test to More Accurately Identify Aggressive Prostate Cancer
- News article: The Prostate Cancer Centre Collaborates in Pivotal Study to Validate AI-Powered ClarityDX Prostate Test
- Research publication: Development of an effective predictive screening tool for prostate cancer using the ClarityDX machine learning platform