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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- All prostate cancer risk is not created equal. According to a new study, compared to Caucasians, Hispanic men have among the lowest rates of prostate cancer of any ethnic group except Asians.
This may be due to the fact that we simply are not looking enough because Hispanic men may not have access to screening or could be reluctant to undergo some of the screening procedures that are becoming routine among Caucasian men, Kathleen Torkko, Ph.D., an instructor in the department of pathology at the University of Colorado in Denver, was quoted as saying. But the study showed there were significant genetic factors at work.
Dr. Torkko and her colleagues observed three groups of men -- white, Hispanic and white Hispanic. They checked blood samples specifically for polymorphisms from two nuclear vitamin D receptors and from an enzyme which converts testosterone to a more potent form.
Among non-Hispanic white men, the enzyme (reductase V89L) and one of the vitamin D receptors (Fok1) was associated with a more than 50 percent increased risk of prostate cancer. The effect was absent in Hispanic men. In Hispanic white men, a combination of V89L enzyme and another vitamin D receptor (CDX2) was linked with a more than three-fold increase in prostate cancer not found in non-Hispanic white men.
Prostate cancer is not likely caused by a few genes, Dr. Torkko said. She says she believes the findings demonstrate the importance of looking at multiple genes to understand the risk differences for prostate cancer by ethnicity.
Studying disease by race is a complex issue, Dr. Torkko explained. The public needs to understand that we are trying to raise biological rather than social questions.
She says the results help to add a piece of the genetic puzzle of risk and racial differences, but further study is needed before the results can be applied clinically.
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SOURCE: Clinical Cancer Research, published online May 15, 2008
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