Scientists find new prostate cancer genes, plan new genetic test

Researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine announced on Thursday the development of an innovative genetic blood test for prostate cancer that looks at five genetic variants, helping doctors determine a man's risk for prostate cancer before it appears.

Reporting their study in the latest edition of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), a team of American and Swedish researchers said a combination of common and minor variations in five regions of DNA can help predict a man’s risk of getting prostate cancer.

"There are five genetic variants that have been shown to be associated with prostate cancer risk," said lead researcher Dr. Jianfeng Xu, a professor of epidemiology and cancer biology at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

The five genetic locations include three on chromosome 8q24, one each on chromosome 17q12 and chromosome 17q24.3, the report said.

To validate their findings, the researchers analyzed the DNA of over 4,700 Swedish men, and found that the probability of prostate cancer increased by 400 to 500 percent in those patients whose genes contained four of the five common variants.

That risk became more striking, more than 900%, in the patients who had these gene variants and a strong family history of prostate cancer. "Family history is the sixth factor. For a man with five gene variants and a family history the risk is increased tenfold," said Xu, who conducted the study together with the scientists at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, the Harvard School of Public Health, and Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, among others.

Until now, age, race and family history were the three risk factors associated with increased risk of prostate cancer. Now researchers think that by using these gene variants and family history as a guide, physicians can predict which men have a risk of developing prostate cancer.

A company, ProActive Genomics, formed by researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, plans to start offering the blood test in the coming months.

The test, which will analyze DNA in mailed in blood or saliva samples, should be available in a few months, and should cost less than $300, said Karen Richardson, a Wake Forest spokeswoman.

Prostate cancer can be cured if detected early. Despite advances in early detection, nearly 40% of patients experience recurrence and this form of tumor remains the second most common cancer in men in the US. Nearly 230,000 American men are diagnosed with prostate cancer each year, and about 30,000 die of it. The death rate is 2.5 times higher among blacks than among whites.