Prostate Cancer: Leveling The Playing Field

You cannot just think that 'playing the field' is as simple as a game. Unfortunately, it is not, and neither is prostate cancer. The field effect is much more complicated than it sounds. It plays an upper hand in the development of tumors in the prostate area. There have been multiple tests to understand the correlation between the field-effect and its effects on the growth of the tumor in the prostate. How are they related? Do genes have any role to play in it? What happens to the healthy tissues between tumors in the prostate? These are the baffling questions to which people are trying to find answers. Read on to know all there is to know about it.                                                          

What is the Field Effect?

Before knowing what ‘playing the field’ means, we need to understand what the Field Effect means. It was during an experiment in the year 1953 on oral cancer that the name of ‘field effect’ originated. It was the squamous cells of the mouth that showed the effects of carcinoma. The main impact was the existence of multiple tumors in just one organ. It was not just oral cancer that showed symptoms of this effect, but the same was observed in breast, lung, esophagus, and prostate cancer as well. It is necessary to know the extent of the growth of tumors for the best prostate cancer treatment.

What is the cause of the Field Effect?

It is a collective opinion of a lot of cancer hospitals that the Field Effect is a result of genetic mutation of body cells. Some are also of the opinion that it might be caused by epigenetic reasons because of which the cells are unable to produce adequate RNA or protein for the body.

How is prostate cancer affected by the Field Effect?

The relationship between the Field Effect and prostate cancer varies with the region of the tumor. Usually, people find that the cluster of cells surrounding the tumor remains unaffected by it. In reality, they suffer from mutation, though it was not found to be cancerous by any cancer hospital.

Since no concrete existence of driver mutation was found, the ruling of field effect due to genetic reasons was weakened. One peculiar aspect found during this research was that there were genetically distinct subclones in the tumor. This leads people to believe that cancer cells can travel between healthy cells of the body. This becomes an essential notation for the best prostate cancer treatment.

Is the playing field of the Field Effect and Prostate cancer even?

No, the playing field is not even. Prostate cancer is responsible for causing individual tumors that require treatment in a cancer hospital. On the other hand, field-effect is responsible for multiple tumors in the body. The cancerous cells grow in different parts of the prostate independently, but the genetic defect of gene fusion binds them. The fusion of ERG and TMPRSS2 marks the appearance of multiple tumors in a single Prostate. The findings conclude that the prostate, as a whole, has to be diagnosed with targeted treatment rather than focusing on a single tumor treatment plan.