[Genetic predisposition to prostate cancer]

The advent and recent use of Genome-Wide Association studies (GWAS) for the search of genetic predisposition markers for prostate cancer since 2006 has put a very strong emphasis on the 8q24 locus where several single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) have been significantly associated with an increased relative risk. A wealth of recent papers have all confirmed the interest of this locus and identified several others. Interestingly, these markers seem to have additive effects pointing to the high complexity of prostate cancer predisposition. This situation along with our current inability to identify any causal gene(s) in these regions make these findings difficult to translate into routine clinical practice at the present time, a fortiori in terms of population screening.