Prostate Cancer Research: An Introduction
Doctors and scientists are hard at work conducting
prostate cancer research. Prostate cancer research studies are designed to answer important questions and to find out whether new approaches are safe and effective. This research already has led to many advances, and scientists continue to search for more effective methods for dealing with prostate cancer.
Current Areas of Prostate Cancer Research
Prostate cancer research is advancing on dozens of fronts. Scientists are:
- Probing the basic causes of disease
- Developing markers to distinguish slow-growing cancers from aggressive cancers
- Testing drugs to control or reduce risk for prostate cancer.
Most of the results are preliminary at present.
Prostate Cancer Research on Genes
Scientists involved with prostate cancer research are exploring numerous links between genes and the development of prostate cancer. So far, they have identified:
- Several genes that may affect a prostate cancer's ability to spread (metastasize)
- A gene change spurred by hormonal therapy
- A gene flaw that interferes with the body's defenses against environmental carcinogens.
The presence of multiple identical genetic segments (DNA repeats), which appear to intensify signals that order the cell to multiply, may provide a better way to predict a cancer's aggressiveness.
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