If you have prostate cancer and an inherited gene mutation, have the worst form of the disease. This is according to new research published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, which found that not only does the BRCA2 gene put your wellbeing at high risk of prostate cancer, but your wellness is also the most likely to be affected by aggressive tumours and poor survival rates.
Around one in every 100 men with prostate cancer will have the BRCA2 mutation, which is also linked to hereditary breast cancer and ovarian cancer. For many, treatment is not immediately necessary as some men may live symptom-free for a lifetime, despite having this cancer. However, the study findings indicate that men with BRCA2 and prostate cancer should be treated early and aggressively because their tumour is more likely to spread.
For the study, researchers at The Institute of Cancer Research in London and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust examined the medical records of prostate cancer patients which included 61 men with BRCA2, 18 men with a similar gene mutation called BRCA1, and 1,940 men with neither mutation. The researchers discovered that men with BRCA2-mutations were more likely to have advanced disease at the time of diagnosis, and significantly less likely to survive their cancer. Men will the mutation lived an average of 6.5 years after diagnosis compared with 12.9 years for non-carriers.
‘It is clear from our study that prostate cancers linked to inheritance of the BRCA2 cancer gene are more deadly than other types,’ lead researcher Professor Ros Eeles said. ‘It must make sense to start offering affected men immediate surgery or radiotherapy, even for early-stage cases that would otherwise be classified as low-risk. We won’t be able to tell for certain that earlier treatment can benefit men with inherited cancer genes until we’ve tested it in a clinical trial, but the hope is that our study will ultimately save lives by directing treatment at those who most need it.’
Dr Julie Sharp of Cancer Research UK, commented, ‘This study shows that doctors need to consider treating men with prostate cancer and a faulty BRCA2 gene much sooner than they currently do, rather than waiting to see how the disease develops. We knew that men who inherit a faulty BRCA2 gene are at a greater risk of developing prostate cancer but this is the largest study to show that the faulty gene also makes the disease more likely to develop quickly and spread.’
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