Hereditary prostate cancer in African-American families

The recognition that family history is an important risk factor for the development of prostate cancer has led to the search for prostate cancer susceptibility genes. Although most prostate cancer linkage studies have focused on Caucasian families, there is epidemiological evidence indicating that the relative risk attributable to a positive family history is similar in African-American and Caucasian-American families. There are data to support the existence of two potential prostate cancer susceptibility genes both on the long arm of chromosome 1; these have been called HPC1 and HPC2. Studies from us and others have shown that HPC1 may contribute to the clustering of prostate cancer in some African-American families. African-American families with multiple cases of prostate cancer should be encouraged to participate in genetic research studies with the goal of identifying the molecular basis for inherited prostate cancer susceptibility in this population.