Prostate cancer updates

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDOct 8 2010

New marker for prostate cancer

Scientists have found that genetic variations for an enzyme involved in cell energy metabolism may increase the risk of prostate cancer. This variation in genes may impair the enzyme phosphodiesterase 11A (PDE11A), which helps regulate cells' responses to hormones and other signals, according to the U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development researchers and colleagues.

The study was published in the online version of the journal Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

For the study the team compared tissue from 50 prostate cancer patients and 287 men without the disease and identified eight variations in the PDE11A gene that decreased the production or activity of PDE11A. Thirty percent of prostate cancer patients had one or more of these gene variations, compared with 10 percent of men without prostate cancer.

One of the lead authors Dr. Constantine Stratakis, acting director of the Intramural Research Program at the NICHD said, “Our study indicates that PDE11A one day may have a place in genetic screening for predisposition to prostate cancer.” There has been evidence linking PDE11A to testicular cancer and adrenal tumors.

One of the erectile dysfunction drug tadalafil acts be inhibiting PDE11A, but there is no current clinical evidence linking the drug to prostate cancer or other cancers, said the researchers.

PSA and prostate cancer

American men with prostate cancer were 45 percent less likely to die from the disease in 2006 than they were in 1999, according to the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Death rate from the disease declined from 23.5 deaths to 13 deaths per 100,000 males during the period. As per current knowledge men with elevated levels of Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) are considered at risk of having prostate cancer. When a person is found to have raised PSA, he is referred for biopsy and further work up to rule out cancer.

In a recent study published in the British Medical Journal found that a man's PSA level measured at age 60 could predict his lifetime risk of dying of prostate cancer. Dr. Hans Lilja, of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and colleagues looked at data from 1,167 Swedish men 60 years of age who provided blood samples in 1981 and were followed up to age 85. Only a minority of men age 60 with PSA levels higher than 2 ng/mL experienced fatal prostate cancer, but those men comprised 90 percent of the prostate cancer deaths. Thus men with a PSA level of 2 or higher at age 60 have 17 times and 26 times increased odds of metastasis and death from prostate cancer, respectively, than men with PSA levels of 0.65-0.99, according to the study.

Prostate cancer Australia

Prostate cancer is the most common cause of cancer in Australia and has the highest number of diagnosis in New South Wales. The annual list has stated that in New South Wales, the numbers of men detected with prostate cancer were 6,905, in bowel cancer the numbers were 4,741 and the numbers in breast cancer were 4,418. Among the men who live above the age of 85, the chances of prostate cancer increased to one man in every four.