Prostate cancer: Prognostic and predictive factors

Prostate cancer (PC) is the most common cancer in men, in Europe and the United States, and the third leading cause of death from cancer in European men. Clinical factors have been used to stratify prostate cancer patients and to provide guidance on the risk of cancer progression and on treatment needs. PSA screening has led to a loss in the discriminatory power of these clinical and pathologic features; nonetheless, further research is needed to identify molecular drivers of PC which if integrated with clinical factors could improve prognostication. The research for molecular prognostic factors is particularly challenging in prostate cancer given the enormous intratumoral genomic and biological heterogeneity in most early stage PC. The high incidence of PC in Western countries pleads for the investigation of means to distinguish indolent from potentially lethal prostate cancers and an early identification of patients for whom treatment is indicated.