April 01, 2007
Researchers report that a variation in a portion of DNA strongly predicts prostate cancer risk and that this common variation may be responsible for up to 20 percent of prostate cancer cases in white men in the United States. The research was conducted by investigators from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, and their partners in the Cancer Genetic Markers of Susceptibility (CGEMS) initiative. CGEMS researchers are scanning the entire human genome to identify common, inherited gene mutations that increase the risks for breast and prostate cancers. The results appear in the May 1, 2007 issue of Nature Genetics and were published online April 1, 2007.