Blood and tissue biomarkers in prostate cancer: state of the art.

Overview

The prevalence of prostate cancer (PCa) is high and increases with age. PCa is the most common cutaneous cancer in American men. Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening has impacted the detection of PCa and is directly responsible for a dramatic decrease in stage at diagnosis. Gleason score and stage at the time of diagnosis remain the mainstay to predict prognosis, in the absence of more accurate and reliable tissue or blood biomarkers. Despite extensive research efforts, very few biomarkers of PCa have been introduced to date in clinical practice. Even screening with PSA has recently been questioned. A thorough analysis of all tissue and serum biomarkers in prostate cancer research cannot be easily synthesized, and goes beyond the scope of the present article. Therefore the authors focus here on the most recently reported tissue and circulating biomarkers for PCa whose application in clinical practice is either current or expected in the near future.