Copy Number Analysis Indicates Monoclonal Origin Of Lethal Metastatic Prostate Cancer

Main Category: Prostate / Prostate Cancer
Also Included In: Cancer / Oncology;  Urology / Nephrology
Article Date: 22 Jun 2009 - 0:00 PDT

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BERKELEY, CA (UroToday.com) - I was trained and board certified as a urologist (University of Virginia) and pathologist (Cornell and UVA) and arrived at Johns Hopkins in 1991 to do a research fellowship with Dr. William B. Isaacs, funded by the American Foundation for Urologic Disease (now the AUA Foundation).

Envisioning that we could do a lot more to help men with prostate cancer, and men and women with other cancers, I fell deeper and deeper into research to the point that I gave up my urology practice, and have been trying to help open new vistas for cancer research since then.

From my perspective, this recent paper does open a new vista. It shows the outlines of how each man appears to have his own version of prostate cancer, and how each of them (based on our high resolution study limited to 14 men so far) has its own clonal origin that can be derived from studying multiple metastases from each man, and it suggests that studies of metastatic cancers could form a badly needed central reference point for unraveling more of cancer's secrets.

I'd be happy to converse about the paper with any UroToday.com readers through my blog.

Written by G. Steven Bova, MD as part of Beyond the Abstract on UroToday.com.

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