A new study shows that the risk for
prostate cancer is significantly elevated in men who are part of families with a hereditary form of breast and
ovarian cancer. Researchers at
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center have determined that men in families carrying BRCA genetic mutations have a three- to five-fold increased risk of
prostate cancer.
“While the association between hereditary breast and prostate cancer has been suspected, this is the first study of its type to confirm the link,” said Kenneth Offit, MD, Chief of the Clinical Genetics Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering and senior author of the study, which is published in the May 1 issue of Clinical Cancer Research.
Researchers obtained DNA specimens from 251 men of Eastern European (Ashkenazi) Jewish ancestry who had prostate cancer but were otherwise unselected on the basis of personal or family history. The blood samples were tested for mutations of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes and compared to specimens taken from 1,472 healthy men. Investigators pinpointed BRCA2 – not BRCA1 – as the common genetic link to prostate cancer.
The results show that the frequency of certain BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations was 5.2 percent in the prostate cancer cases compared to 1.9 percent in the healthy volunteers. When stratified by gene, the risk for prostate cancer was 4.8 times higher in carriers of a specific BRCA2 mutation than in the healthy individuals tested.
“While the participants in the study were of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry, the results may apply to all individuals with BRCA2 mutations,” said Noah Kauff, MD, a gynecologist and geneticist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering and a co-author of the study.