Prostate cancer is currently the most frequently diagnosed cancer in humans. Prostate cancer is a complex and heterogeneous disease and the prognostic factors currently available do not provide an accurate prediction of the cancer's outcome. Accordingly, one of the key priorities of clinical cancer research is to validate new biomarkers that can be used to gauge the aggressiveness of prostate cancer.
Researchees at our laboratory, working with the Haematology and Oncology Department at the Grenoble CHU, have performed an immunohistochemical analysis of CK2 expression based on the immunohistochemistry of 111 prostate cancers, in order to study a possible correlation of this expression with the disease's standard prognostic factors.
The results revealed an overexpression of CK2 in upwards of 43% of cancers and that this overexpression correlates to unfavourable prognostic factors. For example, 85% of tumours presenting a strong CK2 overexpression recorded a Gleason score of over 7.
Patients showing strong CK2 overexpression may present with a more aggressive disease; the CK2 status could therefore become a determinative factor in the treatment of prostate cancer.