Chapter 1 Introduction

Abstract

This chapter introduces prostate cancer (PCa). PCa is the most common newly diagnosed cancer among men in the United States. With the advent of the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test, the number of newly diagnosed cases has increased tremendously. PCa is the leading cause of death due to cancer in men in the United States. Prostate cancer is a complex and multistep disease. The dissection of the mechanisms of molecular events that contribute to the initiation, progression, and metastatic dissemination of human PCa requires, a priori , adequate experimental model systems. In addition, inactivation of tumor suppressor genes through frequent allelic deletions and other genetic alterations has been shown to play an important role in the development of a variety of human cancers. It has been documented that genetic alterations of a number of tumor suppressor genes are involved in the pathogenesis of human PCa. Thus, examining a large number of PCa patients for the status of multiple tumor suppressor genes would most likely warrant an answer.