An overview of translational prostate cancer cohorts for prognostic and predictive studies

The aim of this review is to describe the characteristics of patient cohorts commonly used for translational biomarker research in prostate cancer and to outline the most prominent contemporary cohorts which serve as a source of prognostic and predictive biomarkers. A non-systematic review of the literature was performed to identify and summarise well-characterized translational prostate cancer cohorts that provide state-of-the-art characterization of (i) primary and (ii) metastatic and castration-resistant prostate cancer. The main advantages and features of these cohorts are a substantial number of patients, unique patient groups, comprehensive genetic characterisation of tumours using multi-omics/next-generation sequencing approaches, high-quality control standards and fully or partially open data for the research community. This overview includes the contemporary cohorts which serve as a rich source of new targets for prognostic and predictive biomarkers as well as a reference database for validation of known biomarkers, therefore representing the cohorts whose impact extends over the current state of biomarker research into the near future (5-10 years).