Prostatic acinar adenocarcinoma: evaluation of IGFR expression as a possible target for targeted molecular therapies

The significant increase in the incidence of acinar adenocarcinoma of the prostate in recent years has made it necessary to search for an alternative therapy to surgery. Given the fundamental role played by IGF-1R in the process of neoplastic transformation and progression, the inhibition of its signal transduction cascade represents a good therapeutic approach for the development of specific target therapies. In this study, the expression of IGF-1R on already diagnosed neoplastic tissue of 90 selected cases was evaluated by immunohistochemistry, in order to correlate IGF-1R positivity with the grading score of neoplasms and the age of patients with acinar adenocarcinoma of the prostate. From the results obtained, it is clear that it is not possible to identify a category of patients who - a priori - can benefit from target therapy with anti IGF-1R. In fact, it is essential to test each individual case by means of immunohistochemistry or molecular biology investigations to draw up a genetic profile of the individual tumour, in order to reliably identify the molecular target sensitive to targeted therapy, as the Insulin like Growth Factor Receptor may become - in the immediate future.