Ricerc@Sapienza

In the Prostate Imaging Reporting and Data System (PI-RADS) 3 population, the overall detection rates for prostate cancer (PC) and clinically significant PC (csPC) range from 10.3% to 55.8% and from 3.4% to 46.5%, respectively. Decision to perform only a targeted biopsy or a systematic biopsy should be associated with a lower detection rate of both PC and csPC. PI-RADS v1 or v2 seems to have no significant impact on biopsy outcomes. A prostate-specific antigen density of ≥0.15 ng/ml/ml may represent an index to decide whether to biopsy or not.

The association between circulating total testosterone (T) levels and clinically significant PCa is still a matter of debate. In this study, we evaluated whether serum testosterone levels may have a role in predicting unfavorable disease (UD) and biochemical recurrence (BCR) in patients with clinically localized (≤ cT2c) ISUP grade group 1 PCa at biopsy.

On March 29th 2020, 97,689 cases of COVID-19 have been diagnosed only in Italy, with 73,880 actually positive cases, a daily increase of 3815 cases, 27,386 hospitalized and 3906 patients in intensive care units, causing a total of 10,779 known deaths. In all urological departments, quickly inpatient and outpatient services have been significantly reduced. Even in this COVID-19 situation, urological neoplasm care must go on, but significant changes need to be made in the way some care is delivered.

Widespread prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing notably increased the number of prostate cancer (PCa) diagnoses. However, about 30% of these patients have low-risk tumors that are not lethal and remain asymptomatic during their lifetime. Overtreatment of such patients may reduce quality of life and increase healthcare costs. Active surveillance (AS) has become an accepted alternative to immediate treatment in selected men with low-risk PCa.

During the last years, pharmaceutical innovations in primary care are dramatically less frequent and will be even more rare in the next future. In this context, preclinical and clinical research oriented their interest toward natural compounds efficacy and safety, supporting the development of a new “nutraceutical” science. Medicinal plants, in the form of plant parts or extracts of them, are commonly used for the treatment of prostate diseases such as benign hypertrophy, prostatitis and chronic pelvic pain syndrome.

Prostate cancer (PCa) is a multifactorial disease characterized by the aberrant activity of different regulatory pathways. STAT3 protein mediates some of these pathways and its activation is implicated in the modulation of several metabolic enzymes. A bioinformatic analysis indicated a STAT3 binding site in the upstream region of SHMT2 gene. We demonstrated that in LNCaP, PCa cells' SHMT2 expression is upregulated by the JAK2/STAT3 canonical pathway upon IL-6 stimulation.

Estrogen and hypoxia promote an aggressive phenotype in prostate cancer (PCa), driving transcription of progression-associated genes. Here, we molecularly dissect the contribution of long non-coding RNA H19 to PCa metastatic potential under combined stimuli, a topic largely uncovered. The effects of estrogen and hypoxia on H19 and cell adhesion molecules' expression were investigated in PCa cells and PCa-derived organotypic slice cultures (OSCs) by qPCR and Western blot. The molecular mechanism was addressed by chromatin immunoprecipitations, overexpression, and silencing assays.

androgen receptor variant 7 (AR-V7) has been suggested as potential marker for treatment selection in men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). The aim of the present review is to critically analyze: frequency of the AR-V7 expression in mCRPC cases-impact of AR-V7 expression on abiraterone, enzalutamide, and taxane therapy.

In recent years, immunotherapy has been proposed for the treatment of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer (PCa). Clinical trials using Sipuleucel-T have demonstrated a survival benefit in PCa patients, suggesting that this cancer is linked to a limited immune response. However, the outcome of PCa treated with immune therapeutics has limited benefits in monotherapy: novel vaccination approaches and immune checkpoint blockade gave disappointing results.

Pathogenic sequence variants (PSV) in BRCA1 or BRCA2 (BRCA1/2) are associated with increased risk and severity of prostate cancer (PCa). We evaluated whether PSVs in BRCA1/2 were associated with risk of overall PCa or high grade (Gleason 8+) PCa using an international sample of 65 BRCA1 and 171 BRCA2 male PSV carriers with PCa, and 3,388 BRCA1 and 2,880 BRCA2 male PSV carriers without PCa.