Studying Prostate Cancer in African-Americans

The NIH recently launched a large-scale research effort on aggressive prostate cancer in African-American men. The $26.5 million study, dubbed RESPOND, will enroll 10,000 African-American men with the disease, and analyze existing data from another group of 10,000 men.

RESPOND will be funded by the NIH through the NCI and the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, as well as by the Prostate Cancer Foundation.

“In the U.S., [African-American] men have about a 15% chance of developing prostate cancer, compared to a 10% chance in white men, and they're more likely to be diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer” and have twice the risk of dying from the disease, says Damali Martin, PhD, MPH, a program director at the NCI. “We want to learn more about why these disparities exist, and to learn more about the risk factors for these disparities, so we can start to address this issue.”

Tamara Lotan, MD, of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD, a RESPOND investigator, says it is the first prospective, large-scale study on prostate cancer in African-American men that will integrate biological data, including genomic data from germline and tumor sequencing, with lifestyle and social risk factors such as discrimination.

Martin thinks the genomic findings could eventually help researchers identify men with aggressive forms of prostate cancer, thus informing screening and treatment. Additionally, information on lifestyle and social risk factors could be incorporated into interventions designed to help prevent the disease.

“What really excites me about this study is the multifactorial nature of it, and trying to get at the answers in a group of men that experience the highest burden from this disease,” Martin says. –Catherine Caruso

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