prostate-report.org

Risk of prostate cancer increases with the number of affected family members

Prostate cancer is a complicated condition, and researchers are working hard to understand its causes. For a long time now doctors have known that prostate cancer “runs in the family”. Several studies have identified prostate cancer family history as an elevated risk factor for prostate cancer incidence. But exactly how high is an individual person’s risk? For whom and at what age should an early detection screening urgently be recommended?

Researchers of German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) have analyzed these questions in the largest study ever published on familial prostate cancer. They investigated data from 26,651 prostate cancer patients, 5,623 of whom came from families in which the disease had been diagnosed before. [more about prostate cancer risk ]