New therapeutic targets in the treatment of prostate cancer

Androgen deprivation therapy has become the mainstay of the treatment of advanced prostate cancer, being used in every clinical setting of the disease, from neoadjuvant to metastatic disease. Despite success in controlling the disease in the majority of men, hormonal manipulations will eventually fail. New agents are being developed for patients with hormone refractory disease. Important advances in molecular oncology have improved our understanding regarding the cellular mechanisms that regulate cell death in the prostate. It is hoped that these new insights will lead to development of more efficacious and easy to tolerate therapies for cancer prostate. This review focuses on the current literature on tumor vaccines, angiogenesis inhibitors, antisense oligonucleotides, differentiation agents, cancer-specific genes, endothelial receptor antagonists, anti-apoptotic agents, agents acting on signaling pathways and androgen and estrogen receptors.