More genes linked to prostate cancer

By Gene Emery

BOSTON (Reuters) - Researchers studying Swedish men say they have uncovered five genes responsible for nearly half of all cases of prostate cancer in that country and said their findings might lead to a better test for the disease.

Men having four of the five genes were 4.5 times more likely to develop a tumor than those who had none. For those who have all five genes and a family history of prostate cancer, the risk was 9.5 times greater.

The researchers, who report their results in the New England Journal of Medicine, say the findings are "significant and could affect clinical care" because a blood test can identify the cancer genes.

The team at Wake Forest University in North Carolina and Johns Hopkins University in Maryland drew blood from 2,893 prostate cancer patients and 1,781 men without the disease in Sweden.

They found 16 small changes in the genetic code that were more common to men with prostate cancer than those without the disease. Then they created a test using the most common of these changes, called single nucleotide polymorphisms or SNPs (pronounced "snips).

Men with four or more of these SNPs were nearly 4.5 times more likely to be in the prostate cancer group, they reported.

"Our finding provides an opportunity to supplement the well-established risk factors by looking at how many of these variants a man has inherited," Wake Forest's Dr. Jianfeng Xu said in a statement.

"It may provide a much better weapon to guide clinicians," Xu added.