Prostate Cancer Risk Highest
with Affected Brother

To have a lower risk of prostate cancer, it's better to have a father with the disease than a brother, new research suggests. Of course, having no family members with the disease carries the lowest risk.

This finding is the opposite of what is seen with breast cancer, in which a person's risk is lower if they have a sister with the disease rather than a mother, lead author Dr. Deborah Watkins Bruner said in a statement.

"This may suggest that the risk may be related to shared environmental factors such as dietary exposures or age of onset of disease, which might reveal a stronger genetic risk," Dr. Bruner, from the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, added.

The new findings are based on a review of 24 studies that looked at a person's risk of prostate cancer when different family members were affected.

The report is published in the International Journal of Cancer.

Compared with having no family members with prostate cancer, having any relative with the disease raised the risk by 93 percent. If any first-degree relative such as a father or brother was involved, a 120 percent increase in risk was seen, whereas disease in a second-degree relative, such as an uncle, raised the risk by 88 percent.

Having a father with prostate cancer doubled a person's risk of the disease, while having an affected brother nearly tripled their risk.

These findings could be used to better gauge prostate cancer risk and could potentially reduce unnecessary screening tests and diagnostic surgeries, Bruner noted.

SOURCE: International Journal of Cancer, September 12, 2003.

Reference Source 89

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