FRIDAY, July 23 (HealthDay News) -- Nine genetic variants located in different regions have a cumulative association with risk of developing prostate cancer, according to a study in the August issue of The Journal of Urology.

Brian T. Helfand, M.D., of Northwestern University in Chicago, and colleagues genotyped 687 men who had prostatectomy from 2002 to 2008 and 777 healthy controls. The researchers assessed the presence of the nine genetic variants in the prostate cancer patients and controls and their cumulative risk for the disease. They also compared predictions using both an established risk model incorporating five of the variants and an expanded model using all nine.

The researchers found that the prostate cancer patients had a higher rate of all nine genetic variants than did the controls. The cumulative model with all nine variants provided greater prostate cancer risk stratification than the model that included only the five genetic variants that had previously been shown to have a cumulative association with prostate cancer risk. Men with at least six of the variants had a more than six-fold higher risk for prostate cancer. Carriers of two of the newly identified variants, 2p15 and 11q13, were more likely to have aggressive features, but, in carriers and non-carriers, other clinicopathological features were similar.

"Genetic variants located in nine regions have a cumulative association with prostate cancer risk. Identification of an increasing number of single nucleotide polymorphisms may provide greater understanding of their combined relationship with CaP risk and disease aggressiveness," the authors write.

The study was supported in part by deCODE Genetics, and one study author reported a financial relationship with that company and the diagnostic equipment company, Beckman Coulter.

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