Statement of Need

Prostate cancer is now the most common cancer outside of skin cancer. In 2009, an estimated 192,000 new cases of prostate cancer were diagnosed and about 27,000 men died from the disease.

Approximately 2.2 million living American men have been diagnosed with prostate cancer, and some are living with metastatic disease, a painful and functionally limiting stage of the disease. Its incidence is increasing, probably due to improved diagnosis of early-stage disease, but to date no convincing reduction in mortality has accompanied the pattern of early diagnosis. When prostate cancer is localized, or confined to the prostate, it is potentially curable. Therefore, considerable activity is currently being devoted to improving primary therapies for localized prostate cancer, including newer surgical techniques or the application of new radiotherapy techniques, such as intensitymodulated radiotherapy (IMRT) or image-gated radiotherapy (IGRT). Once prostate cancer has spread to other tissues it is generally incurable and treatment is usually palliative in intent. Most clinical research in the latter setting has involved the use of cytotoxic chemotherapy, however, recent insights into the biology of prostate cancer have provided clues to new therapeutic possibilities.

Download a PDF of the full issue