[Prostate cancer. Treatment].

The discovery and the utilisation of the prostate specific antigen (PSA) that allows early diagnosis of prostate cancer, have considerably improved the management of this disease. Before the PSA era, prostate cancer was just a disease of the old man, generally detected at an advanced stage and incurable, with a fatal outcome delayed by the androgenic deprivation. Since early 1990's, prostate cancer has become primarily a disease of the man of 60 years, detectable earlier, and curable provided no extraprostatic dissemination has occurred. Early treatment of prostate cancer has benefited from important advances in surgical and radio-therapeutic techniques (conformational irradiation, brachytherapy), with, as principal goal, the combination of a better survival and the reduction of the potential adverse effects that alter quality of life. A better definition of the characteristics of the tumours in terms of progression regarding various parameters (clinical stage, PSA, tumoral differentiation) have resulted, despite the heterogeneity of the disease, in the determination of subgroups of tumours with different prognosis, which leads to an improved therapeutic strategy. The assessment of men's life expectancy (< or > 10 years) is the second primary parameter on which is based the indication for curative or non curative therapy in case of localized tumour. Roughly, before the age of 75, a curative therapy is indicated whereas after this age a surveillance is reasonable as first-line treatment, followed by hormone therapy in case of onset of symptoms indicating some progression of the disease (urinary symptoms, bone lesion). At a Later stage, in case of a metastatic or locally advanced cancer, hormone therapy by androgenic deprivation is highly indicated. The hormone sensitivity characterizes prostate cancer; it has been discovered more than 50 years ago by Charles Huggins (Nobel prize-winner). This hormone therapy is a palliative treatment since its efficacy is transient (ineluctable occurrence of hormone resistance in a variable time delay), but it constitutes an essential therapeutic means with a well-established efficacy. Hormone therapy has progressively improved, with the renunciation of oestrogen therapy and surgical castration which has been replaced by luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone (LH-RH) analogues, and/ or anti-androgens. Numerous works have resulted in a better rationalization of the prescription (date of treatment initiation, interest of combined androgenic deprivation, ...) but uncertainties remain, such as the therapeutic interest of intermittent treatment, or of earlier hormone therapy combined with the treatment of the primitive tumour (adjuvant hormone therapy). Finally, at the time of the hormonal escape of which the molecular mechanisms remain unclear, no therapy has proven any efficacy in survival lengthening, and the treatment remains palliative and symptomatic. Although improved knowledge of prostate cancer aetiology is expected for a real disease prevention, early diagnosis at a curable stage of the disease (by PSA assessment) remains the only means for mortality reduction.