Prostate cancer (CaP) is the 3rd leading cause of mortality from cancer in the Czech Republic. Every 10th cancer disease worldwide in men is CaP. Microanalytical DNA technologies and proteomic techniques provide us with new opportunities enabling us to distinguish slowly growing tumors from aggressive ones by means of molecular “prints“. A new oncogene present in most of CaPs was discovered and mechanism of this event was explained, using a new molecular biology method. The oncogene is generated by translocation of promotor region of TMPRSS2 gene to the locus of ETS family of transcription factors. STAT5 transcription activator was identified as a factor critical for CaP cells survival. A considerable progress has been made in explanation of the epigenetic factors role in the CaP genesis. The results of search for the inherited CaP- -responsible locus are still not convincing. The significance of techniques for the detection and characterization of circulating tumor cells has increased. Almost 100 markers potentialy usefull for CaP diagnosis have been reported. Serum Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) and derived parameters (tPSA density, tPSA/transition zone ratio, tPSA velocity, age-specific tPSA levels, free PSA/total PSA index, tPSA doubling time) can significantly contribute to the differential diagnosis of CaP. The average costs for early detection of CaP in CR are 8650 CZK for one year of patient‘s life. Kallikrein hK2, kallikrein hK11, glutathion-Stransferase π1, Stem Cells Prostatic Antigen, Prostate-specific membrane antigen, Telomerase Reverse Transcriptase, and Chromogranin A were studied in details. Considerable effort was put into urine CaP markers monitoring. More than 20 different urine markers have been studied but the populations have been small.

        Key words: prostate cancer, prostate cancer biomarkers