1 Introduction The prostate causes a signi?cant number of medical problems in the adult male, and the lower urinary tract symptoms are accepted as an unavoidable consequence of male aging. Most of these symptoms are mainly due to clinical benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), which is the most frequent benign tumor in the male, in- pendent of race or culture. On the other hand, cancer of the prostate shows an increasing incidence, being the second leading cause of death in men, after lung cancer. It has an etiology related to multiple factors: age, race, androgen dep- dence, chemical agents, diet, etc. Both pathologies are very costly in terms of medical resources, and they s- ni?cantly diminish quality of life. More than 400,000 prostate resections per year are done in the US, and these result in an approximate cost of 5 billion dollars per year. Because of all these circumstances, a better knowledge of the mechanisms regulating normal, hyperplastic, and neoplastic prostate growth is important for treatment and prevention of BPH and prostate cancer. Since the last review about prostate neuroendocrine cells published in 1998 there have been new and exciting developments relating to these cells in both normal and pathologic prostate. The cross talk of signals between epithelial and neuroendocrine cells seems relevant to the development and physiopathology of the prostate; thus the relationship between these cell populations should be more deeply studied.
Authors and Affiliations
Department of Anatomy, Histology and Neuroscience School of Medicine, Autonomous University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Luis Santamaría,
Lucia Alonso
Department of Anaesthesiology, Hospital Ramón y Cajal, Madrid, Spain
Ildefonso Ingelmo
Department of Medical Sciences, Histology and Anatomy School of Medicine, San Pablo-CEU University, Madrid, Spain
José Manuel Pozuelo,
Rosario Rodriguez
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Neuroendocrine Cells and Peptidergic Innervation in Human and Rat Prostrate
Authors: Luis Santamaría, Lucia Alonso, Ildefonso Ingelmo, José Manuel Pozuelo, Rosario Rodriguez
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE, part of Springer Nature 2007
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-540-69815-9Published: 11 May 2007
eBook ISBN: 978-3-540-69816-6Published: 06 May 2007
