Angiogenesis in prostate cancer: onset, progression and imaging

As confirmed by all available statistics, cancer represents a major clinical and societal problem in the developed world. The form of cancer with the highest incidence in men is prostate cancer. For prostate cancer, as well as for most forms of cancer, detection of the disease at an early stage is critical to reduce mortality and morbidity. Today, it is well known that pathological angiogenesis represents a crucial step in cancer development and progression. Comparable with most forms of cancer, angiogenesis also plays a fundamental role for prostate cancer growth. As a consequence, angiogenesis is an ideal target not only for novel anti-angiogenic therapies, but also for modern imaging techniques that aim at cancer localisation by detection of angiogenic microvascular changes. These techniques are mainly based on magnetic resonance, ultrasound, and nuclear imaging. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the available studies on angiogenesis in prostate cancer and its use by modern and emerging imaging techniques for prostate cancer localisation.