Disseminated tumor cells and dormancy in prostate cancer metastasis.

It has been reported that disseminated tumor cells (DTCs) can be found in the majority of prostate cancer (PCa) patients, even at the time of primary treatment with no clinical evidence of metastatic disease. This suggests that these cells escaped the primary tumor early in the disease and exist in a dormant state in distant organs until they develop in some patients as overt metastases. Understanding the mechanisms by which cancer cells exit the primary tumor, survive the circulation, settle in a distant organ, and exist in a quiescent state is critical to understanding tumorigenesis, developing new prognostic assays, and designing new therapeutic modalities to prevent and treat clinical metastases.