Blacks have higher prostate cancer return

Durham, N.C. -- African-American men are at higher risk of their prostate cancer returning, but their disease is no more aggressive than in white men, says a U.S. study.

African-American men tend to have higher prostate specific antigen, or PSA, levels at initial diagnosis of prostate cancer and are diagnosed at younger ages and this suggests that there may be an underlying genetic and biologic component that predisposes African-American men to prostate disease, senior researcher Dr. Stephen Freedland, a urologist at Duke University in Durham, N.C., said.

"Our study found that African-American men have a slightly higher risk of what is known as PSA recurrence, which is a blood test that indicates the presence of cancer based on the levels of a certain biomarker known as prostate-specific antigen," Freedland said in a statement. "We were encouraged, however, to see that their disease is not necessarily more aggressive than that of white men, once it has recurred."

The study, published in the Nov. 15 issue of the journal Cancer, found African-American men were 28 percent more likely to experience a disease recurrence,

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