Cancer is a genetic disease, so prostate cancer is a genetic problem. This statement might be the most important one we can make when trying to describe the current, overall situation we face as prostate cancer survivors!
Many institutions have begun significant research studies trying to understand the actual genetic keys to prostate cancer. Prostate cancer risk, prostate cancer progression and prostate cancer treatments are all affected by genetics. What could be both the largest and longest running study of prostate cancer genetics has been going on in the United Kingdom (UK) since 1993. It involves 189 hospitals through out the UK and at this time, is scheduled to continue running to 2017.
The study has a simple aim: to find genetic changes, which are associated with prostate cancer risk. They hope to find alterations in genes that increase the chances of getting prostate cancer so that it would be possible, in the future, to screen family members to see if they are also at a higher than normal risk of developing prostate cancer. Also, they hope that they will be able to develop new treatments for both localized and advanced prostate cancer as well as be able to predict an individual’s disease progression.
In the UK prostate cancer is the commonest cancer in men with 1 in 10 men developing it in their lifetime. Despite how common it is its causes still remain very poorly understood with f