Genetics and prostate cancer risk Free

CN13-02

Epidemiological data reveal that African American men have the highest incidence and mortality rates for prostate cancer in the world. Prostate cancer, like many other common diseases likely has environmental components to their risk and thus results from currently unknown interactions between environmental factors and underlying genotypes. However, the observed population differences in prostate cancer incidence and mortality can not be explained completely by differences in access to and quality of health care, diet or other lifestyle characteristics. Whether differences in the distribution of known or undefined genetic risk factors among different populations explain the disparity is unknown. What is known is that many prostate cancer candidate genes exhibit large differences in allele frequencies across different populations. The significance of these patterns has yet to be fully understood. Many scientists are now exploring genetic ancestry in order to help distinguish between the genetic and environmental factors which contribute to population differences in disease risk.