[Prognostic factors of localised, locally advanced or metastatic prostate cancer]

In prostate cancer, whatever the stage of the disease, the selection of a treatment strategy is based on prognostic factors. Clinical stage, serum PSA concentration and Gleason score are among the most recognised factors. A combination of these three parameters leads to a score used to define prognostic groups that are routinely used in daily practice. More recently, predictive statistical models have been developed that were associated with nomograms. The objective of nomograms is, for a given patient, to calculate his probability to develop disease extension or relapse based on clinical, biological, histological and therapeutic (radiotherapy, hormonotherapy) data. Such nomograms are not all validated and their application in daily practice is more difficult than that of classical prognostic classifications. Nowadays, the progress and accessibility to novel technologies applied to biology will make possible in the near future the assessment of new prognostic profiles based on genetic and/or proteomic tumour characteristics.