Hereditary prostate cancer

Recent research makes it probable that there is a hereditary form of prosta te cancer. By identifying prostate cancer cases in the Swedish twin registr y it was possible to show a pronounced difference in proband concordance ra tes and correlation of liability between monozygotic and dizygotic twin pai rs, which indicates strongly that genetic factors are important for prostat e cancer. In a nation-wide register cohort study it was found that the risk for prostate cancer was approximately two times higher among sons to prost ate cancer patients when compared to Swedish men in general. By linkage ana lyses at least two loci for putative prostate cancer genes have been identi fied, one on chromosome 1 (1q24-25) and one on the X-chromosome (Xq27-28). Before genetic testing becomes available it was suggested that men with the familiar aggregation of prostate cancer should be evaluated with a PSA tes t on a regular basis.