The Prostate and Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia

The hallmark of the cancer cell is its ability to escape from the normal regulatory mechanisms that control cellular biology. Thousands of research studies have been published on the changes that occur in the cancer cell that might facilitate this process. While some changes are generic to many tumor types, others are specific. Changes are known to occur at all levels of the cell and can influence events from the DNA code right up to its posttranslational modification into a functional protein. The serial accumulation of genetic and biological changes is thought to drive the transition from normal to dysplastic and eventually malignant cells. Collectively genes that increase the potential for tumorigenesis at any level of cell function are termed oncogenes while those whose loss facilitates cancer are termed tumor suppressor genes. In this chapter, only the principles of genetic and biological changes will be discussed with salient examples in urological cancers ( Fig. 1 ). A full list of all the known alterations would take many books to cover. Figure 1 Summary chart of genetic and biological alterations that can occur in cancer cells. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780429110269/6332914b-1a7a-44bc-933a-4b4cc047c467/content/fig20_1.tif" xmlns:xlink=" http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink "/>