Personalized management of prostate cancer: from molecular and imaging markers to radiogenomics

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the second most common cancer in men. The urge to guide treatment tactics based on personal clinical risk factors has evolved in the era of human genome sequencing. To date, personalized approaches to managing PCa patients have not yet been developed. Radiogenomics is a relatively new term, used to refer to the study of genetic variation associated with imaging features of the tumour in order to improve the prognostication of the disease course.

The study is a review of recent knowledge regarding potential clinical applications of radiogenomics in personalized treatment of PCa.

Recent investigations have proven that by combining data on individual genetic tumour features, and radiomic profiling (radiologic-molecular correlation), with traditional staging procedures in order to personalize treatment of PCa, an improved prognostication of PCa course can be performed, and overtreatment of indolent cancer can be avoided. It was found that a combination of multiparametric MRI and gene expression data allowed the detection of radiomic features of PCa, which correlated with a number of gene signatures associated with adverse outcomes. It was revealed that several molecular markers may drive tumour upstaging, allowed the distinction between the PCa stages, and correlated with aggressiveness-related radiomic features.

The radiogenomics of PCa is not a comprehensively investigated area of oncourology. The combination of genomics and radiomics as integrative parts of precision medicine in the future has the potential to become the foundation for a personalized approach to the management of PCa.