Growing genetic and molecular biological evidence suggests that the disruption of balance between Secreted Frizzled-Related Protein-1 (SFRP1) and β-catenin plays an important role in the initiation and development of multiple cancers. The aim of this study was to examine whether the expression of SFRP1 and β-catenin is associated with the clinical-pathologic features of patients with prostate cancer (PCa), and to evaluate their potential roles as predictive and prognostic biomarkers. In this study, a total of 61 patients with PCa and 10 patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia were included, and we showed that the expression of SFRP1 and β-catenin was correlated with the Gleason score, survival rate and response for endocrine therapy of PCa. The survival rates of PCa patients with low SFRP1 expression (P = 0.016) or high β-catenin expression (P = 0.004) were significantly poorer. A negative correlation (r = -0.275, P = 0.032) between SFRP1 and β-catenin was observed by Chi-square test. Multivariate analysis suggested that SFRP1 (hazard ratio, 0.429; 95% confidence intervals, 0.227–0.812; P = 0.009) may serve as an independent predictive and prognostic factor for PCa. We also showed that the protein and mRNA levels of SFRP1 in androgen-dependent PCa cell line LNCaP were significantly higher than those in androgen-independent PCa cell lines DU145 and PC3. However, the protein level of β-catenin in LNCaP cells was significantly lower than that in DU145 and PC3 cells, and no significant difference of β-catenin mRNA level was observed in LNCaP, DU145 and PC3 cells. Bisulfite sequencing PCR assay revealed significantly lower methylation level of SFRP1 promoter in LNCaP cells than that in DU145 and PC3 cells. Taken together, these findings suggest that SFRP1, which expression inversely correlates with that of β-catenin, is a favorable predictive and prognostic biomarker.

Dear Editor,We present an interesting case of a patient with erectile dysfunction (ED) and testosterone deficiency (TD) who was treated with testosterone supplementation therapy (TST) in combination with sildenafil for 45 months. The patient continued to respond well even after the discontinuation of sildenafil for 8 months. Major side effects and complications were not reported at the long-term follow-up.In September 2007, a 46-year-old, married, healthy male (height 1.75 m, weight 70 kg, BMI: 22.9, BP: 130/80 mmHg) presented to the hospital because of ED lasting more than 2 years. He reported having good erectile function prior to the development of ED. He did not experience morning or spontaneous erections and had no response to several types of phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors (PDE5is), despite receiving a sufficient dosage of sildenafil, tadalafil, and vardenafil many times. At that time, his International Index of Erectile Function-5 (IIEF-5) score was 7 (.21 is normal), and his serum total testosterone (TT) was 9.68 nmol l 21 (2.79 ng ml 21