Implementation of functional imaging and molecular diagnostics for patient-tailored treatment of prostate cancer.

Prostate cancer is a very frequent disease (>9000 cases each year in Belgium) with a very complex biology. There is still a great margin of improvement for the currently used methods in diagnosis and therapy of prostate cancer. Starting from a homogeneous patient population, we will translate novel molecular findings on PCa biology into clinical practice by implementing functional imaging techniques (non-invasive) and evaluating novel molecular diagnostic tools (invasive) with the ultimate goal to better predict prognosis and therapeutic responses for PCa patients. It is the combination of the generated data per patient and per biopsy which gives this project an important advantage over earlies studies. Prof. F. Claessens will characterize the changes at the level of the DNA. Ultimately this study will improve the selection of the optimal treatment for specific patient groups, enabling a more patient-tailored treatment. Moreover, this will lead to reduced overtreatment and thereby avoidance of high costs and possible treatment-related side-effects.

Keywords:Genetics, Transcriptomics, Lipidomics, Diagnostic markers, Prostate biopsies, Imaging

Disciplines:Laboratory medicine, Palliative care and end-of-life care, Regenerative medicine, Other basic sciences, Other health sciences, Nursing, Other paramedical sciences, Other translational sciences, Other medical and health sciences, Urology and nephrology