Hey this is way complex and I do not profess to know squat but maybe we can gleen something from some of this. You may have to google and research some, I have a few Journal articles of interest herein your could find, library maybe on line too. Let me lay out the basics as I barely understand them, but will try:
Two types of cell divisions take place in all living organisms, Meiosis and Mitosis (google it), we humans have 2-sets of 23 chromsomes (46 total) that helps determine our bodies (eye color, hair and all that stuff). They have already found that during Meiosis which has like 3 stages of changes that a DNA break can and does occur and have double stranded DNA structures (that is ok so far) but might and can further break and get very wild such that like your cancer cells get out of control, even though other cells can remain normal. There can be DNA partials, lost components, fragmented and things like that. They have identified a couple places whereby they can repair the crazy DNA through two found ways(thus leading to normal cell death I guess is the info), this is so important(herein) that Phase I results are published in a Journal, which my onco doc says is very rare to happen and this looks very promising thus far and he says Bio Techs and Large Pharma's are into this big time...as somebody is going to have a break through, first with patent if possible would win very big. Has to do with PARP1 inhibitor and also BRCA (which is breast cancer related)
So here some info to look into if this stuff interests you:
New England Journal of Med. 361:2 (NEJM.org) July 9, 2009 ("Synthetic Lethality-A New Direction in Cancer-Drug Development- Dr. Iglehart & Dr. Silver)
Breast Cancer Research 2009, 11:111 (doi:10.1186/bcr2451) (link?- http://breast-cancer-research.com/content/11/1/111) "PARP inhibitors and the treatment of breast caner: beyond BRCS 1/2? (Dr. Frizzel and Dr. Kraus)
Cell 128, 157-170, January 12, 2007 -2007 Elsevier, Inc.- "Essential Role for Nuclear PTEN in Maintaining Chromosomal Intergrity" (is this Cell magazine?? perhaps?) (maybe google for PTEN and read about its significance...this something little different to read about)
Note that our Ploidity analysis on our pathology (an optional testing) =DNA PCa cells which is seldom paid for and done in pathology (should be considered done for additional fees), there are 3-types of ploidity analysis in our cells the best to be found with is diploid which is like normal cells 2 identical strands of DNA, if and when it may morph by breaking the chain during normal Meiosis, then you can end up with wild ploidity of Aneuploid and Teteraploid (spelling?) of which the DNA is out control and thus drugs against the PCa are much less effect or sometimes useless, and also your prognosis will thus change with these changes.
Here is the thing: your initial PCa could start off with diploid (that is the best scenario), but it can and does change later in many cases to the more wild DNA structures that we cannot get good control over (thus far). This is one reason why if you are on drug protocol longer term the cancer changes and become harder to defeat...as it has DNA structures that are wild and more uncontrollable...sometimes a new drug might work as it may find a different receptor mechanism to get accepted into the cell and help kill it or change it. There are alot of different receptor mechanisms to get into the cancer cells or have them accept another source....it gets into positive and negative charged electrons and stuff like that, way beyond my comprehension. The bad thing but maybe worth knowing up front if you start off with the other two types of ploidity analysis the PCa patient might have a heads up that you are further along in the disease getting out of total control...so maybe you don't have near as much time left as someone else...in effect. This is my understanding and it could be incorrect...be seems to make sense to me on this dragon and helps explain why some patient do way worse or better than others even with ridiculous looking stats and high risk scenarios.