Simple Genetic Test Identifies Susceptibility for Prostate Cancer

At present, men suspected of suffering from prostate cancer are identified mainly using the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) tests. PSA is a substance secreted by epithelial cells in the prostate. However, the PSA test has a relatively low sensitivity and more effective methods are required.

Prostate cancer is partly caused by inherited factors making some men more likely to develop the disease. From the five relatively common gene variants identified that affect this risk, each affects the risk only marginally, and they have been of no real benefit to individual patients.

Scientists at the Swedish medical university, Karolinska Institutet (Stockholm, Sweden), have shown that men carrying a combination of known risk genes run a four to five times higher risk of developing prostate cancer. Together with American colleagues these scientists have analyzed the cumulative effect of these gene variants for the first time. The results showed that men who carry four or more risk variants have a four to five times greater risk of developing prostate cancer. This risk is increased even more if they also had close relatives with the disease.

Published online in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) on January 16, 2008, the study was based on genetic analyses of approximately 4,800 Swedish men, of whom 3,000 had prostate cancer and 1,800 had no prostate cancer diagnosis.

"In the near future, it will be possible to combine PSA tests with simple genetic tests,” said Professor Henrik Grönberg at the Karolinska Institutet. "This means that fewer men will have to undergo unnecessary biopsies and that more prostate cancer diagnoses can be made.”


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Karolinska Institutet