Evaluating ELISA for Prostate Cancer Detection: A Hybrid PROMETHEE-TOPSIS Approach Using Prostate-Specific Antigen Levels

Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) detection is very vital for the early, accurate diagnosis and management of prostate cancer. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) is a promising PSA detection method due to its high sensitivity, and researchers continuously explore its potential. However, selecting the best ELISA method from available options can be challenging. As a result, we focused on using the Preference Ranking Organization Method for Enrichment Evaluation (PROMETHEE) and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) to assess the optimal technique for prostate cancer detection. In this study, the PROMETHEE and TOPSIS were used to evaluate different types of ELISA methods such as Direct (D- ELISA), Indirect ELISA (I- ELISA), Sandwich ELISA (S-ELISA), and Competitive ELISA (C- ELISA) based on Detection range (DR), Incubation time (IT), Ease of use (EOU), Cost-effectiveness (CE), Specificity (Sp%), Sensitivity (Se%), Linearity (Li), Precision (Prec), Accuracy (Acc), Limit of detection (LOD) (ng/mL), and Coefficient of variation (CV%) as criteria. The results showed that C-ELISA ranked first with a net flow value (Phi) of 0.0030 in PROMETHEE and second with a performance rating (Pi) of 0.5864 in TOPSIS. Conversely, D-ELISA ranked second with a net flow value of 0.0000 in PROMETHEE and first with a Pi value of 0.5944 in TOPSIS. In both analyses, I-ELISA and S-ELISA ranked third and fourth, respectively, among the selected ELISA methods. This study highlights the importance of PROMETHEE and TOPSIS in selecting the most appropriate ELISA method for accurate prostate cancer detection using PSA.