Imaging and Markers as Novel Diagnostic Tools in Detecting Insignificant Prostate Cancer: A Critical Overview

Recent therapeutic advances for managing low-risk prostate cancer include the active surveillance and focal treatment. However, locating a tumor and detecting its volume by adequate sampling is still problematic. Development of predictive biomarkers guiding individual therapeutic choices remains an ongoing challenge. At the same time, prostate cancer magnetic resonance imaging is gaining increasing importance for prostate diagnostics. The high morphological resolution of T2-weighted imaging and functional MRI methods may increase the specificity and sensitivity of diagnostics. Also, recent studies founded an ability of novel biomarkers to identify clinically insignificant prostate cancer, risk of progression, and association with poor differentiation and, therefore, with clinical significance. Probably, the above mentioned methods would improve tumor characterization in terms of its volume, aggressiveness, and focality. In this review, we attempted to evaluate the applications of novel imaging techniques and biomarkers in assessing the significance of the prostate cancer.