Prostate cancer is the most common type of cancer in men and the third most common cause of male-cancer-related mortality in Europe. Although there have been significant advances in the treatment of metastatic and recurrent prostate cancers with impressive survival responses in many patients, several challenges persist. A fraction of cancer patients fail to respond to therapeutics, others eventually become resistant, and die from their cancer. Another important challenge is to develop novel methodologies and biomarkers that can better assess aggressiveness and treatment response of prostate tumors. This could help guide therapy for individual patients, and avoid unnecessary risk for those that do not need treatment.
The term “Precision Medicine” is typically used to describe an approach aiming to identify genetics alterations, oncogenic drivers, or pathways within cancer cells or the patient tumor in order to better diagnose and find the best possible treatment for an individual patient, typically by exploiting some of the newest methodologies, cancer treatments, and anti-cancer drugs.
This personalized approach first appears in contrast to traditional therapies that are usually chosen without considering underlying genetic abnormalities. However, Precision medicine test may also help guide patients' treatment decisions to the available traditional therapies (surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy), active surveillance, or multimodality approaches.
This evaluation often relies on high throughput technologies such as next-generation sequencing of exomes or transcriptomes, proteomics, and gene expression profiling to analyze tumor specimens, blood or other fluids. Notwithstanding, more classical techniques remain crucial and can be optimized throughout the clinical sample processing and validation including histology-pathology, imaging, immunohistochemistry, and FISH. In this regard, sample processing and method standardization is an important point to consider.
The aim of this topic, for clinicians and researchers alike, is to share their experience in testing and developing these methodologies, discuss potential applications, advantages, feasibility, and challenges toward the development of a prostate cancer precision medicine; the ultimate goal being to improve the management of patients with early and advanced prostate cancers.
Prostate cancer is the most common type of cancer in men and the third most common cause of male-cancer-related mortality in Europe. Although there have been significant advances in the treatment of metastatic and recurrent prostate cancers with impressive survival responses in many patients, several challenges persist. A fraction of cancer patients fail to respond to therapeutics, others eventually become resistant, and die from their cancer. Another important challenge is to develop novel methodologies and biomarkers that can better assess aggressiveness and treatment response of prostate tumors. This could help guide therapy for individual patients, and avoid unnecessary risk for those that do not need treatment.
The term “Precision Medicine” is typically used to describe an approach aiming to identify genetics alterations, oncogenic drivers, or pathways within cancer cells or the patient tumor in order to better diagnose and find the best possible treatment for an individual patient, typically by exploiting some of the newest methodologies, cancer treatments, and anti-cancer drugs.
This personalized approach first appears in contrast to traditional therapies that are usually chosen without considering underlying genetic abnormalities. However, Precision medicine test may also help guide patients' treatment decisions to the available traditional therapies (surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy), active surveillance, or multimodality approaches.
This evaluation often relies on high throughput technologies such as next-generation sequencing of exomes or transcriptomes, proteomics, and gene expression profiling to analyze tumor specimens, blood or other fluids. Notwithstanding, more classical techniques remain crucial and can be optimized throughout the clinical sample processing and validation including histology-pathology, imaging, immunohistochemistry, and FISH. In this regard, sample processing and method standardization is an important point to consider.
The aim of this topic, for clinicians and researchers alike, is to share their experience in testing and developing these methodologies, discuss potential applications, advantages, feasibility, and challenges toward the development of a prostate cancer precision medicine; the ultimate goal being to improve the management of patients with early and advanced prostate cancers.
