ABSTRACT
The development of therapeutic resistance is the underlying basis for most cancer deaths and therefore of great interest in medical research. Despite the introduction of a number of new agents, cure for advanced tumors remains infrequent and a distant goal. For example, prostate cancer is the most common cancer and the third most common cause of cancer related mortality in men in the United States [1]. While early detection has increased with the advent of serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing, the disease is often advanced when patients present with symptoms. For those with metastatic disease, androgen withdrawal is the most effective form of systemic therapy. Unfortunately, caused by clonal selection and adaptive responses androgen-independent progression is inevitable and death occurs within a few years in the majority of cases [2]. Historically, chemotherapy was thought to have minimal clinical efficacy. However, more recently for docetaxelbased chemotherapy a 20% prolongation in survival was demonstrated [3,4]. These improvements are significant but modest, since median survival for patients with hormone-refractory prostate cancer (HRPC) is still only 18 months.
