Prostate cancer prevention: agent development strategies.

Despite advances in surgery, radiation, and medical therapy over the past decade and the widespread adoption of PSA screening, prostate cancer continues to be the second leading cause of cancer death in men in the United States. Invasive cancer is the end result of carcinogenesis, a chronic process occurring over many years driven by genetic and epigenetic alterations. The protracted nature of this transformation to the malignant phenotype provides an opportunity to intervene pharmacologically to prevent, reverse, or delay carcinogenesis, i.e. chemoprevention. Herein, we describe the unique features of cancer prevention, as opposed to cancer treatment, agent development clinical trials, and provide a summary of the ongoing research in this field being supported by the National Cancer Institute.