title: Disseminated tumor cells and dormancy in prostate cancer metastasis.
abstract: It has been reported that disseminated tumor cells (DTCs) can be found in the majority of prostate cancer (PCa) patients, even at the time of primary treatment with no clinical evidence of metastatic disease. This suggests that these cells escaped the primary tumor early in the disease and exist in a dormant state in distant organs until they develop in some patients as overt metastases. Understanding the mechanisms by which cancer cells exit the primary tumor, survive the circulation, settle in a distant organ, and exist in a quiescent state is critical to understanding tumorigenesis, developing new prognostic assays, and designing new therapeutic modalities to prevent and treat clinical metastases.
authors.affiliation: The James Buchanan Brady Urological Institute and Department of Urology, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA; VUmc School of Medical Sciences, VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Emma E
authors.initials: EE
authors.lastname: van der Toom
authors.affiliation: The James Buchanan Brady Urological Institute and Department of Urology, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
authors.forename: James E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Verdone
authors.affiliation: The James Buchanan Brady Urological Institute and Department of Urology, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA; Department of Oncology, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA; Department of Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA; Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA. Electronic address: kpienta1@jhmi.edu.
authors.forename: Kenneth J
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Pienta
mesh_terms: D006412:Hematopoietic Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology; D006801:Humans; D060046:Maintenance Chemotherapy; D008297:Male; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis; D009360:Neoplastic Cells, Circulating / Q000473:pathology; D011471:Prostatic Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D055153:Stem Cell Niche