Current Trends in Prostate Cancer Etiology, Pathogenesis and Diagnostics

Prostate cancer (PCa) remains the second most commonly diagnosed cancer in men, with an estimated 1.1 million diagnoses worldwide in 2012, accounting for 15% of all cancers diagnosed. In many cases, successful treatment of prostate cancer is difficult due to late detection and rate of metastasis. Importantly, the tumours of many patients with prostate cancer become refractory to androgen therapy and progress to metastatic castration-resistant disease. An effective treatment course of prostate cancer patients requires predictive biomarkers in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer that support individual treatment. Different risk classification tools have been developed to distinguish patients with early PCa according to the prognosis, including the D’Amico classification system, the Cancer of the Prostate Risk Assessment score, and the National Comprehensive Cancer Network risk groups classification. Unfortunately, there is still no single, universal, cheap, non-invasive, early prostate cancer diagnostic tool, as serum prostate specific antigen (PSA) has not approved expectations and is not implemented in standardised prostate cancer screening. The aim of this review was to provide current state of art knowledge of prostate cancer screening, diagnosis, staging and future perspectives and directions.