title: New concepts concerning prostate cancer screening.
abstract: Prostate Cancer (CaP) is rapidly becoming a worldwide health issue. While CaP mortality has decreased in recent years, coincident with the widespread use of Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) screening, it remains the most common solid tumor in men and is the second leading cause of cancer death in the United States. The frequency of CaP is growing not only in western cultures, but also its incidence is dramatically increasing in eastern nations. Recently, examination of data from long-term trials and follow up has cast a shadow on the effectiveness of employing PSA as a primary screening tool for CaP. In this review, we not only summarize opinions from this examination and synthesize recommendations from several groups that suggest strategies for utilizing PSA as a tool, but also call for research into biomarkers for CaP diagnosis and disease progression. We also describe our recent work that identified a smooth muscle contractile protein in prostate epithelia, namely smooth muscle gamma actin, and indicate the potential for this molecule as a new unique footprint and as a CaP marker.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Coast, Long Beach MS 39560, USA.
authors.forename: Rebecca A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Fillmore
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Physiology, College of Medicine, Texas A&M Health Science Center, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-1114, USA.
authors.forename: Chinatsu
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kojima
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Physiology, College of Medicine, Texas A&M Health Science Center, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-1114, USA.
authors.forename: Chevaun
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Physiology, College of Medicine, Texas A&M Health Science Center, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-1114, USA.
authors.forename: Georgina
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kolcun
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Texas A&M University, College of Medicine, TX 77843, USA.
authors.forename: Lawrence J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Dangott
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Physiology, College of Medicine, Texas A&M Health Science Center, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-1114, USA Interdisciplinary Faculty of Toxicology, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, 77843 Faculty of Genetics, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA WEZimmer@medicine.tamhsc.edu.
authors.forename: Warren E
authors.initials: WE
authors.lastname: Zimmer
keywords: Prostate Cancer Antigen 3; Prostate cancer; TMPRSS2–EGR gene fusion; prostate-specific antigen; smooth muscle gamma actin