Gene Variant Tied to More Aggressive Prostate Cancer

Men with differing version of tumor suppressor appear at increased risk, researchers say

TUESDAY, Dec. 11 (HealthDay News) -- Men with a variant in the tumor suppressor gene DAB2IP may have an increased risk of aggressive prostate cancer, say researchers who examined genetic clues in Swedish and American men with and without the disease.

The researchers identified a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) -- a single base change in DNA -- located in the DAB2IP gene that was associated with aggressive prostate cancer in European and African-American men.

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"Our study is among the first to report the presence of a potentially important prostate cancer aggressiveness locus. However, we cannot rule out the possibility of false-positive association. This report is intended to stimulate the conduct of additional confirmation studies for a gene that has strong statistical support and biologic relevance as a tumor suppressor gene," wrote Dr. Jianfeng Xu, of Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C., and colleagues.

The study was published online Dec. 11 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Previous studies have offered evidence that genetics play a role in prostate cancer. This has led researchers to suspect there are genetic variants that put some men at increased risk for the disease.

More information

The American Cancer Society details prostate cancer risk factors.

-- Robert Preidt