Prostate Cancer: Shifting from Morphology to Biology

The aim of this book will be to contribute to the education of a new generation of experts in urology, molecular biology, pathology and oncology, offering them sufficient knowledge in basic and translational research to be fluency in the web of interacting networks playing a role in prostate cancer development, progression, metastasis and drug-resistance. The volume will cover the latest innovative researches in prostate cancer, with particular emphasis to the state-of-the-art analysis technologies that are essential for the accurate identification of molecular targets for disease diagnosis, molecular mechanisms of tumorigenesis, markers for susceptibility, molecular-based prognostic prevision, characterization of biomarkers of drug efficacy and drug resistance, validation of new therapeutics and diagnostics. Current advancements on the intersecting data concerning transcriptomes, proteomes, and the molecular techniques referred as "omes", will be reported and discussed.

Foreword. Preface. List of contributors. I Clues to morphological diagnosis and prognosis evaluation. -Update on diagnostic criteria, on biopsy and surgical specimen: pre-invasive lesions, from epithelial cell hyperplasia to carcinoma in situ invasive carcinoma. First-line immunophenotyping of prostate diseases. - II Molecular pathology. - Molecular determinants of cancer-related inflammation. - Apoptosis and autophagy. - Androgen receptor and steroidogenesis pathways. - Neuroendocrine differentiation role of somatostatin receptors (SSTRs) for diagnosis, prognosis, and therapy. - Metastatic dissemination. - Resistance to castration - resistance to drugs. - Crossroads of signaling pathways. III Genetic and Epigenetic Events in prostate cancer. - Gene polymorphisms. - Expression signature. - Mapping prostate cancer aggressiveness loci. - Epigenetic mechanisms: histone acetylation, DNA methylation, miRNA, chromatin modifiers. IV A modern approach to therapy of prostate cancer: targeting the deadly subset. -Molecular markers for patient selection and stratification: personalized prognostic predictive models. - Targeting tumor angiogenesis. - Efficacy of signal transduction inhibition in advanced prostate cancer. - Therapeutic targeting of the bone pre-metastatic niche. - Counteracting hypoxia in radio-resistant metastatic lesions. - Synthetic lethality : molecular co-targeting to restore the DNA. - Repair mechanisms in prostate cancer cells concluding remarks. Index.