Efficacy of signal transduction inhibition in advanced prostate cancer

The overall survival of patients with metastatic Castration-resistant Prostate Cancer (CRPC) is discouraging low (Attar et al., Clin Cancer Res 15:3251-3255, 2009). CRPC exhibit tremendous heterogeneity and complexity, reflecting the dysregulation of multiple patterns, mutations, and pathways, combined in a different manner in each patient. Of course, the impact of this heterogeneity on outcome and response to therapy is tremendous. It is therefore an urgent need to identify the multiple cellular pathways cooperatively promoting progression of the single cases of CRPC for successfully therapeutically target them. Several molecular pathways have been implicated in prostate cancer progression from localized androgen-sensitive disease to lethal CRPC. In this article, we will review some of the recent findings on signal transduction studies performed to identify novel targets and alternative chances of therapeutic intervention for advanced prostate cancer.