Research in castration-resistant prostate cancer: what does the future hold?

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the most common non-skin cancer diagnosed in North America, and it affects 1 in 6 men. Patients with recurrent or metastatic PCa will inevitably develop castration-resistant disease after an initial period of hormone responsiveness. The standard first-line treatment for men with castration-resistant PCa (CRPC) is docetaxel, but further treatment options are limited. This review summarizes the research being conducted in CRPC, with specific regard to immunotherapy and to novel targeted therapies directed against the androgen axis, vascular endothelial growth factor, chaperone proteins, the phosphoinositide 3 kinase/Akt/phosphatase and tensin homolog/mammalian target of rapamycin pathway, and endothelin-1.