Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed form of cancer in Canadian men. In 2006,
greater than 250,000 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer in the United States and Canada
with more than 32,000 men dying of their disease. Using the prognostic variables of
T-category, the serum prostate specific antigen (PSA), and the pathologic Gleason score (GS),
men with localized prostate cancer are placed in low, intermediate and high-risk groupings.
Usually this is treated with surgery, radiation therapy, hormone therapy and/or watchful
waiting (also known as active surveillance). While these treatments are quite effective,
tumours are likely to recur in about 40% of cases. There is a need for additional prostate
cancer treatments. To address this need, many experimental therapies are being developed and
tested in mice with prostate tumors. This includes the study of aggressive prostate cancer
cells such as stem cells, or Tumour Initiating Cells (TICs), or oxygen deprived cells, which
may be the ones most likely to re-grow into a tumour or spread throughout the body.
Researchers want to try and isolate these special cells from the prostate after surgery to
study their features, and to see if they can re-grow as solid tumours in mice. Researchers
would like to test whether the prostate cancer stem cells are more resistant or less
resistant to treatments. This will allow researchers to study and test new treatments that
specifically target resistant and aggressive prostate cancer cells. The investigators
hypothesize that marker-defined TIC cells or hypoxic cancer cells have unique genetics in
primary prostate cancers and are relatively chemo- and radio-resistant.