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Fabio Grizzi [1] and Gianluigi Taverna [2; 3] and Richard J. Cote [4; 5; 6] and Giorgio Guazzoni [2]

1, Department of Immunology and Inflammation, Humanitas Clinical and Research Center, Rozzano, 20089 Milan, Italy, hunimed.eu

2, Department of Urology, Humanitas Clinical and Research Center, Rozzano, 20089 Milan, Italy, hunimed.eu

3, Department of Urology, Humanitas Mater Domini, Castellanza, 21053 Varese, Italy, materdomini.it

4, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, FL 33136, USA, miami.edu

5, Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, FL 33136, USA, miami.edu

6, Department of Biochemistry, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, FL 33136, USA, miami.edu

Received Sep 26, 2017; Accepted Sep 27, 2017

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Prostate cancer represents the second most common cancer in men globally [1]. Prostate, lung and bronchus, and colorectal cancers account for 44% of all cases in men, with prostate cancer alone accounting for 1 in 5 new diagnoses. Despite rapid advances in the fields of molecular and cell biology, how neoplastic prostate cells progress through carcinogenesis remains widely debated.

Prostate cancer is recognized as a complex and multifactorial dynamical disease that is discontinuous in space and time, but advances through qualitatively different states. It is known that prostate cancer is characterized by a high degree of pathological and genetic heterogeneity compared to other human cancers. Recently, several studies have investigated the molecular basis of primary prostate cancer and have identified recurrent genomic alterations, including mutations, DNA copy-number changes, gene rearrangements, and gene fusions [2–4]. Heterogeneous genomic aberrations may lead to prostate cancer onset, disease progression, and metastatic potential. This heterogeneity may also contribute to the variable drug responses observed among affected patients. Serum Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) is, currently, the most important biomarker for the detection, follow-up, and therapeutic monitoring of prostate cancer. PSA based screening for prostate cancer has had an important impact on the epidemiology of the disease. Its use has been associated with a significant reduction in prostate cancer mortality, but has also resulted in the overdiagnosis and overtreatment of...

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