Prostate adenocarcinoma: cellular and molecular abnormalities.

Adenocarcinoma of the prostate gland presents with a wide variety of clinical findings, ranging from asymptomatic, relatively latent tumors to highly aggressive, metastasizing cancers. Tumors predominantly arise from epithelial cells in the peripheral zone of the gland. Tumors that progress, if untreated, will extend into the prostatic capsule and seminal vesicles, and will ultimately metastasize to regional and distant sites such as lymph nodes and bone. Metastatic hormone-refractory disease is the most important cause of morbidity, treatment failure, and subsequent mortality from prostate cancer. The two main issues for clinicians and pathologists involved in prostate cancer are early detection of the cancer and identification of the prognostic factors that predict outcome in individual patients.1