Prostate Cancer – Translational Research: Optimizing tissue sampling suitable for histopathologic, transcriptomic and metabolic profiling

Abstract

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the most common cancer in men in Europe and constitutes a substantial health care problem. In 2009, 4299 new cases were diagnosed in Norway and PCa was the second most common cause of death from cancer in men. The natural history of localized prostate cancer is highly variable with many patients presenting an indolent disease during the first 10 years after diagnosis [1, 2]. Due to the lack of specific markers indicating the aggressiveness of the disease and a modest benefit in survival of radical prostatectomy, overtreatment of patients with localized and low aggressive disease is a major problem leading to substantial morbidity [3, 4]. Results from research on the molecular level of PCa carry the prospect of finding new diagnostic tools and molecules for targeted therapies to achieve a more individualized management of the disease. These molecular analyses require high quality samples and the development of validated methods of fresh tissue harvesting, not compromising diagnostic and prognostic information. Pathways which are deregulated in prostate cancer can be found by studies of genes, proteins or metabolites or by integrating data from these informants. The molecular aberrations hiding in the cancerous cell and clinical implications from molecular analyses can be more easily unveiled by a close collaboration between surgeons, pathologists and laboratory researchers.