A genomic scan of families with prostate cancer identifies multiple regions of interest

A 10-cM genomewide scan of 94 families with hereditary prostate cancer, inc luding 432 affected men, was used to identify regions of putative prostate cancer-susceptibility loci. There was an average of 3.6 affected, genotyped men per family, and an overall mean age at diagnosis of 65.4 years. A tota l of 50 families were classified as early onset (mean age at diagnosis <66 pears), and 44 families were classified as later onset (mean age at diagnos is greater than or equal to 66 years). When the entire data set is consider ed, regions of interest (LOD score greater than or equal to 1.5) were ident ified on chromosomes 10, 12, and 14, with a dominant model of inheritance. Under a recessive model LOD scores greater than or equal to 1.5 were found on chromosomes 1, 8, 10, and 16. Stratification by age at diagnosis highlig hted a putative susceptibility locus on chromosome 11, among the later-onse t families, with a LOD score of 3.02 (recombination fraction 0) at marker A TA34E08. Overall, this genomic scan suggests that there are multiple prosta te cancer loci responsible for the hereditary form of this common and compl ex disease and that stratification by a variety of factors will be required for identification of all relevant genes.