Current status of experimental therapeutics for prostate cancer

Hormone refractory prostate cancer (HRPC) is the progression of disease in the presence of castrate serum levels of testosterone with a median survival of approximately 1 year. A variety of strategies have been developed to improve survival for the patients with advanced prostate cancer. Despite such efforts, the effective treatment modality for those patients has not been established other than chemotherapy. New experimental therapeutics such as gene therapy, vaccine therapy and target therapy use various mechanisms to kill tumor cells selectively while sparing surrounding normal tissues. Furthermore, new approaches in the field of chemoprevention are being made. Recent data from landmark studies, in particular vaccines, have shown improvements in overall survival of HRPC patients. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.