Towards prevention of metastatic prostate cancer: recent molecular insights from the direct analysis of metastatic precursor cells

Metastasis is the major cause of cancer-related deaths in patients with solid cancers (1). Prostate cancer (PC) is the second most frequently diagnosed cancer in males, detected in about every fourth man, and the fifth leading cause of death in men worldwide (2). Somehow surprisingly, the 5-year survival rate of M0-stage patients (i.e., patients without evidence of distant metastasis) is close to 100% (1), because PC is very slowly progressing. The growth of metastasis often takes more than 10 years and death due to metastasis frequently occurs more than 15 years after diagnosis (3,4). Consequently, most men die with PC, not due to PC.