Genetic Polymorphism and Prostate Cancer: An Update

Abstract

Genetic polymorphism and prostate cancer (PC) are the most pernicious and recurrently malignancy worldwide. It is the most dominating cause of cancer related casualty among men in the US. Asian countries are inflicted with PC at an alarming rate though still the prevalence of PC is lower than European and American men. Some of the genetic and environmental factors that might play a role in PC risk include: age genetic predilection, family history, race/ethnicity, lifestyle, and dietary habits and non-dietary environmental risk factors such as smoking. Socio-economic factors including economic, scholastic and intellectual factors do not, intrinsically seem to straight away influence the risk of acquiring PC. Other genetic changes that may support an increased risk of developing PC include HPC1, HPC2, HPCX, CAPB, ATM,s HOXB13 and mismatch repair genes. PC occurrence rates are highly variable. Almost all PC mortalities are due to metastatic disease, generally through tumors the progress to be hormone refractory or castrate resistant. PC, developing research has acknowledged a number of candidate genes and biological pathways associated with PC. Indirect pathways such as P13K/AKT signaling pathway is one of most well known alternate pathway in PC Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is widely known to be potent stimulator of angiogenesis. The over expression of EGFR in a very large majority of cases is accompanied by the succession of PC, implying that this may play a mechanistic role. Numerous occupational factors have been proposed to cause PC. Some of the risk factors include; farmers/agricultural workers, pesticides, shift work and flight personnel. PC treatment can be done through surgery, radical prostatectomy is the main type of surgery. Risks of injury are many – reactions to anesthesia, loss of blood, blood clumps in the legs/lungs, injury to surrounding organs, infection at the site of surgery and many more. The other treatments are hormone therapy, chemotherapy and radio therapy chemotherapy. Chemotherapeutic drugs are typically used one at a time for PC such as transurethral resection of prostate (TURP). Some of the chemotherapeutic drugs are Docetaxel, Cabazitaxel, Mitoxantrone and Estramustine. Among the score of biomarkers being studied, numerous markers and techniques deserve awareness and acceptability for both patients and urologists in clinical practice.