Genetic causes prostate cancer

The evidence that genetics probably plays a critical role is based on a variety of study designs, including case–control, cohort, twin and family-based, all of which are reviewed in detail. The search for prostate cancer susceptibility genes by linkage studies offered early hope that finding genes would be as ‘easy’ as finding genes for breast cancer and colon cancer susceptibilities. It is the most frequent cancer among men in most developed countries, yet little is known about its causes. Older age, African ancestry and a positive family history of prostate cancer have long been recognized as important risk factors, yet we are only at the early stage of unravelling the complex genetic and environmental influences on this disease.

Over the past 20 years, the body of evidence that genetics plays a key role has grown immensely, ranging from familial aggregation and twin studies, to family-based linkage studies, to detection of likely functional genes via mutation screening, to molecular epidemiological studies of both rare and common polymorphisms of candidate genes. However, the evidence also points toward a much more complex genetic basis of this cancer than initially anticipated. This review highlights key findings from a wide range of study designs in an effort to guide the reader through the current understanding of the genetic factors that influence the susceptibility to prostate cancer, and possibly those that modulate its clinical course of disease. Much of this review is focused on genes that are likely to be involved in hereditary prostate cancer, although environmental risk factors and the potential influence of common polymorphic genes are briefly discussed, recognizing that the risk for this disease may result from a complex interaction of all of these factors. Your race is another genetic factor that may affect your chances of cancer. Prostate cancer research tells us that black men are in the most danger and that Asian and Native American men are in the least danger. White and Hispanic men's risk is somewhere in the middle.

These racial factors also apply to the danger of dying from this disease. Black men are not only more likely to get prostate cancer; they are more likely to die from it, while Asian men are very likely to recover. The treatment varies according to how bad your cancer has gotten. But new and improved methods of dealing with the illness are coming about every day. You have a very good chance for recovery if you start the right combination of treatments when your doctor tells you to. This treatment works for all stages. It can be used instead of surgery in early stages or after surgery when the surgery didn't kill all the cancer. It can be combined with hormonal therapy when there is an intermediate risk.

Radiation is used to treat cancer that has spread throughout the body in advanced stages. The success rate for radiation treatment is very similar to the success rate for surgery there are similar survival rates and similar rates of recurrence.