EDITORIALS Inhibition of Prostate Cancer Metastasis: a Critical Challenge Ahead

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men. In the United States, about 244 000 men will be found to have prostate cancer in 1995, and it is estimated that more than 40 000 will die of this disease (/). Little is known about the etiology of pros-tate cancer, there are no curative therapies available for this dis-ease once it has spread beyond the prostate. There has been a marked increase in the incidence of clinically detectable prostate cancer in the United States. This increase has been accom-panied by more frequent detection of the disease in younger patients. Whether the increase in incidence of prostate cancer is due to better detection methods, increased awareness of the dis-ease, or a combination of factors is not yet clear (2). It has been known for some time that there are small, undiagnosed foci of prostate carcinoma in most men in their eighth and ninth decades of life; autopsy studies of men 50 years old or olde