Update on diagnostic criteria, on biopsy and surgical specimen: Preinvasive lesions, from epithelial cell hyperplasia to carcinoma in situ and invasive carcinoma - First-line immuno-phenotyping of prostate diseases

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the first most common malignant neoplasm among men in Western countries and the fifth cause of cancer worldwide. Up to date, there is no single tumor biomarker that accurately predicts patient's clinical outcome. On the basis of these considerations, an optimal characterization of patients with PCa represents an increasingly exciting challenge for surgical pathologists. The ability to discriminate between low and high aggressive PCa represents an highly debated issue, which is critical for the therapeutic choices. This chapter focuses on the recent findings about the prostate morphological and immunohistochemical findings, with a brief reference to recent development of molecular markers with diagnostic and/or prognostic relevance, in the hope of guiding the approach to the pathological interpretation of prostate bioptic and surgical tissue specimens