Gene Variant Tied to More Aggressive Prostate Cancer

Gene Variant Tied to More Aggressive Prostate Cancer
TUESDAY, Dec. 11 (HealthDay News) -- Men with a variant in thetumor suppressor gene DAB2IP may have an increased risk of aggressiveprostate cancer, say researchers who examined genetic clues in Swedish andAmerican men with and without the disease.
The researchers identified a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) -- asingle base change in DNA -- located in the DAB2IP gene that wasassociated with aggressive prostate cancer in European andAfrican-American men.
"Our study is among the first to report the presence of a potentiallyimportant prostate cancer aggressiveness locus. However, we cannot ruleout the possibility of false-positive association. This report is intendedto stimulate the conduct of additional confirmation studies for a genethat has strong statistical support and biologic relevance as a tumorsuppressor gene," wrote Dr. Jianfeng Xu, of Wake Forest University Schoolof Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C., and colleagues.
The study was published online Dec. 11 in the Journal of theNational Cancer Institute.
Previous studies have offered evidence that genetics play a role inprostate cancer. This has led researchers to suspect there are geneticvariants that put some men at increased risk for the disease.
More information
The American Cancer Society details prostatecancer risk factors.