Genetics of prostate cancer

Prostate cancer is the most prevalent cancer and the third most prevalent cause of death in European men. Treatment and early detection of prostate cancer have vastly improved during the last few years. However, it is crucial to identify those patients who have an increased risk for prostate cancer, since those individuals could profit from an intensified surveillance program. About 10% of all prostate cancers are presumably caused by a cancer syndrome of monogenic inheritance. The genes known to be most commonly associated with prostate cancer are BRCA1, BRCA2 and HOXB13. Additionally, a number of other genes, including genes involved in Lynch syndrome, are suspected to increase the risk for prostate cancer. In addition, mutations in certain genes like BRCA1 and BRCA2 have great impact on histopathological characteristics, prognosis and clinical course of prostate cancer. Most importantly, recent studies have suggested that BRCA-mutated prostate cancer is especially sensitive to platin-based chemotherapy, similarly as is the case with breast and ovarian cancer. Therefore, patients with BRCA mutations might profit from a therapy with PARP inhibitors. In any case, the detection of a familial mutation in a patient with prostate cancer enables predictive testing of relatives to evaluate the individual cancer risk, subsequently giving the chance to offer intensified surveillance to those at risk and to relieve those who have not inherited the mutation. © 2019, Springer-Verlag GmbH Austria, ein Teil von Springer Nature.