Abstract
The growing incidence of prostate cancer is a clear reason for further research in the field of diagnosis and treatment of this disease. There has been huge progress made in the treatment of localized disease, even bigger in the treatment of advanced stage of prostate cancer.
However, dayto- day practice shows persistent shortcomings in diagnostic methods, especially the limited risk assessment of patients. Due to the current trends in prostate cancer treatment, it is apparent that it is not only necessary to distinguish patients who have or do not have prostate cancer, but most importantly to identify those who are at risk and need to be treated aggressively.
A standard, practice and time proven marker, at least partially meeting these requirements, is the prostate specific antigen (PSA). The aim of this article is to demonstrate the advantages and disadvantages of using this traditional marker and to present recently identified PSA isoforms that, in combination with standard PSA, can clarify the diagnosis and detection of at-risk patients.
Major statement: There are still countless questions in the field of diagnostics and risk prediction of prostate cancer patients.