Prostate Cancer Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Prostate Cancer, including details on symptoms, genetics, screening, treatment, information.

Gene therapy for prostate cancer: current strategies and new cell-based approaches.

MacRae EJ, Giannoudis A, Ryan R, Brown NJ, Hamdy FC, Maitland N, Lewis CE

Tumour Targeting Group, University of Sheffield Medical School, Beech Hill Road, Sheffield, United Kingdom.

Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in adult males in the Western world. It accounts for one in ten cancer cases and is the second leading cause of cancer death in men, after lung cancer. A number of curative treatments are available for patients with localized prostate cancer such as radical prostatectomy, radiotherapy, or brachytherapy. However, a proportion of these men will develop progressive disease, and some will present de novo with advanced and metastatic prostate cancer, which is amenable to palliation only with androgen-withdrawal therapy. Most of these patients will eventually develop hormone refractory disease which is incurable, and for whom gene therapy, if feasible may develop as an alternative treatment option. In this review we discuss the gene therapy vectors and strategies that are currently in use, new cell-based approaches, discuss their advantages and disadvantages, and review the potential or proven pre-clinical and clinical efficacy in prostate cancer models/patients.

Published 27 February 2006 in Prostate, 66(5): 470-94.
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