SEGREGATION ANALYSIS OF PROSTATE-CANCER IN SWEDEN - SUPPORT FOR DOMINANT INHERITANCE

Several epidemiologic studies have shown familiar aggregation of prost ate cancer, To assess the nature of familial clustering of prostate ca ncer, a complex segregation analysis was performed on a population-bas ed sample of 2,857 nuclear families ascertained through an affected fa ther diagnosed with prostate cancer in Sweden during 1959-1963. The se gregation analysis, using a large, unselected population of prostate c ancer families, revealed that the observed clustering of prostate canc er was best explained by a high risk allele inherited in a dominant mo de, with a high population frequency (1.67%) and a moderate lifetime p enetrance (63%). This study confirms the result from one earlier publi shed segregation analysis and provides the context for interpreting th e recently published linkage of hereditary prostate cancer families to chromosome 1q 24-25 (HPC1).