The notion that over 70% of Autopsy specimens in male will reveal some form of prostate cancer point to the fact the Neoplastic transformation should be expected in most men, and could be described as part of abnormal aging. The challenge to Oncologist and geneticists before each cancer is to determine which "prostate cancer" is before them in each specific elderly.
The current understanding is that the difference in aggressive versus "indolent" cancer rests in the patterns of genes or mutations that each cancer displayed. With the abundance of genes that can go wrong and ultimately start a neoplastic transformation, one is left left with many choices.
It is apparent that a scientific observer needs to control certain parameters and see if a theory can be verified.
One such approach is to assume that certain cancers develop as part of normal senescence and follow where the theory leads us. We need to inventory senescence mechanism at gene level, and see how they can relate or happen in the context of the Prostate gland, and project how that model could lead to a neoplastic transformation, and compare those projection with prostatic tissue of known random cancers, and autopsy specimens in elderly. May be variations will give us conclusive remarks that may help sort out things and improve our knowledge a bit.
The development of the increased availability of tissue banks will improve our potential in conducting research work and reducing specimen collection time and reduce the randomness of specimens. It may help control some variable since you can now specify the race, age, and many other parameter during the observation. Now you can have the bank offer you fresh frozen specimen, or other types of format, or even just the genes already extracted for your observation!
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