prostate cancer - Towards the identification of the true high-risk prostate cancer patient

From 01-07-2012 to 30-06-2015

Description

General description:

Despite the trend towards detection of more early-stage, low-risk prostate cancer (PCa), 20-30% of the patients with newly diagnosed PCa are classified as high-risk, i.e. at high risk for PCa recurrence and risk of dying from PCa. A key factor to the large variation in individual response to PCa treatment, even within the high-risk group, is the fact that currently only clinical prognostic factors are being used to guide therapy selection, not taking into account the underlying heterogeneity in genetic, molecular and physiological characteristics of the tumor. The lack of powerful markers to distinguish indolent from aggressive prostate tumors thus hampers the efficient clinical managment of this disease. Therefore, there is an urgent need for novel and validated biomarkers to allow more accurate selection of patients for a particular primary and/or adjuvant treatment.

Themes:

This project aims to specifically contribute to the discovery of new biomarkers that could identify the true high-risk prostate cancer patients, i.e. those patients that will eventually develop metastatic disease and die on prostate cancer. This would allow to better select patients who will benefit from radical treatment, while at the same time reducing the overtreatment of patients with indolent PCa. More specific, molecular markers in the field of genetics, epigenetics, lipidomics and metastasis will be investigated for their potential role as biomarkers to predict PCa progression, recurrence and PCa-specific mortality. 

Team

• Mathieu Bollen, Co-promoter (External)
• Johannes Swinnen, Co-promoter (External)
• Sofie Isebaert, Co-promoter (External)
• Omer Van den Bergh, Co-promoter (External)
• Dirk De Ridder, Co-promoter (External)
• Joniau, Co-promoter (External)
• Hendrik Van Poppel, Co-promoter (External)
• Evelyne Lerut, Co-promoter (External)
• Bart De Moor, Co-promoter
• Claessens, Co-promoter (External)
• Olivier Gevaert, Co-promoter
• Karin Haustermans, Promoter (External)
• Inge Thijs, Team member
• Dusan Popovic, Team member

Financing

Funding: Vlaamse overheid - Vlaamse overheid

Program/Grant Type: FOD - FOD Volksgezondheid, veiligheid van de voedselketen en leefmilieu-cel kankerplan