Current approaches for early detection and diagnosis include prostate-specific antigen (PSA) which is a useful, though not specific, biomarker for detecting prostate cancer. The suspected patients will be further sent for digital rectal examination(DRE), in which a doctor inserts a lubricated, gloved finger into the patient's rectum to feel for lumps, enlargements, or areas of hardness that might indicate prostate cancer. However, the only test that can fully confirm the diagnosis of prostate cancer is a biopsy - the removal of small pieces of the prostate for microscopic examination. If cancer is suspected using PSA test and DRE, more than 90% suspected patients choose undergo prostate biopsy. Prostate needle biopsies are routinely done on an outpatient basis and rarely require hospitalization. Markedly, the fine needle biopsy is minimally invasive and has currently been suggested for longitudinal monitoring of highly suspected patients or follow-up therapeutic responses. The large availability of biopsy samples for prostate cancer provides a cornerstone for the proposed patient specimen-based research. The investigators anticipate that comprehensive analysis rather than simple pathological examination of these samples will generate new insights to prostate tumor progression in human.
