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Emerging Variants of Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer

  • Genitourinary Cancers (DP Petrylak and JW Kim, Section Editors)
  • Published:
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Abstract

Metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) is associated with substantial clinical, pathologic, and molecular heterogeneity. Most tumors remain driven by androgen receptor (AR) signaling, which has clinical implications for patient selection for AR-directed approaches. However, histologic and clinical resistance phenotypes can emerge after AR inhibition, in which the tumors become less dependent on the AR. In this review, we discuss prostate cancer variants including neuroendocrine (NEPC) and aggressive variant (AVPC) prostate cancers and their clinical implications. Improvements in the understanding of the biologic mechanisms and molecular features underlying prostate cancer variants may help prognostication and facilitate the development of novel therapeutic approaches for subclasses of patient with CRPC.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology, Weill Cornell Medicine, 413 East 69th Street 1412,, New York, NY, 10021, USA

    Panagiotis J. Vlachostergios, Loredana Puca & Himisha Beltran

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  1. Panagiotis J. Vlachostergios
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  2. Loredana Puca
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  3. Himisha Beltran
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Correspondence to Himisha Beltran.

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Panagiotis J. Vlachostergios declares that he has no conflict of interest.

Loredana Puca declares that she has no conflict of interest.

Himisha Beltran has received research support through grants from Millennium/Takeda, Abbvie/Stemcentryx, Astellas/Medivation, and Janssen.

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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Genitourinary Cancers

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Vlachostergios, P.J., Puca, L. & Beltran, H. Emerging Variants of Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer. Curr Oncol Rep 19, 32 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11912-017-0593-6

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