Year: 1996
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: A survey report in 1995 based on certain researches declared that there would be a possibility of one in every six American men to be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their lifetime. As Americans live longer, there continues to be a corresponding rise in the number of prostate cancers with an expected 60% increase. If discovered early when it is still localized within the gland, prostate cancer can be cured surgically via a radical prostatectomy or with localized radiation therapy in approximately 90% of cases. Improved techniques have significantly decreased the complications associated with both of these procedures. Initially, it was found that androgen withdrawal therapy was useful in the surgical or chemical treatment of prostate cancer with the help of induced castration process. But, the cancer eventually relapsed. It was therefore concluded to kill both androgen-dependent and androgen-independent cancer cells. In the growth of cancer, if the rate of cell proliferation is lower than the rate of cell death, then regression of the cancer occurs. In vitro cell culture studies have demonstrated that when androgen-independent, metastatic, prostatic cancer cells are rapidly proliferating; these cells are highly sensitive to the induction of programmed cell death via exposure to the same antiproliferative chemotherapeutic agent that are of limited value when used in vivo in prostatic cancer patients. The paradox between the in vitro and in vivo responsiveness to the same chemotherapeutic agents by androgen-independent prostatic cancer cells is because of major differences in the rate of proliferation occurring in the two states.
Source: Advances in pharmacology
Authors: Samuel R. Denmeade, John T. Isaacs
Institutions: Johns Hopkins University, Johns Hopkins Medicine
Language: English
Subfield: Pulmonary and Respiratory Medicine
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W1502076440