[Congress of the American Urological Association (AUA): update on prostate cancer]

At the last congress of the American Urological Association (AUA), which took place in San Francisco from the 9th to the 12th May 2004, more than 200 abstracts on prostate cancer were presented as posters or as full communications. We present here the highlights of this congress and in particular the main subjects of news, controversies or innovations. Two major topics are particularly worthy of discussion: localized disease on the one hand and locally advanced or metastatic disease on the other. In the chapter on localized disease, we expound the most relevant data on epidemiology, screening, staging and prognosis. For the locally advanced disease we discuss quality of life, prognostic factors and recent advances in hormone therapy and chemotherapy.