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Early-Onset and Late-Onset Prostate Cancers Caused by Different Mechanisms

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Determining early-onset prostate cancer trigger may lead to improved diagnosis and treatment

Although often thought of as a common cancer among elderly men, prostate cancer also strikes patients between the ages of 35 and 50. A recent study has shown that these early-onset prostate cancers are activated by a different mechanism from that causing the disease at an older age.

In collaboration with several other research teams in Germany, scientists from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) compared the genomes of 11 early-onset tumors with 7 late-onset tumors. Evaluations showed that the genomes of early-onset prostate tumors sustain a relatively limited number of changes, compared with the tumors that develop in older patients.

During these changes, decisive exchanges of DNA occur between chromosomes, causing tightly linked fusion genes. Androgen hormones typically activate many of the genes affected by these rearrangements. Therefore, otherwise inactive genes with the potential to cause cancer are now switched on.

“Prostate cancer in young patients appears to be specifically triggered by androgens and to involve genetic alterations that distinguish this cancer from prostate tumors in older patients,” explains Jan Korbel, who led the study at EMBL. “We also measured the levels of androgen receptors in a large cohort of patients from Hamburg, and found data consistent with our initial genomic analysis.”

Compared with older patients with prostate cancer, younger patients with the same disease tend to have higher levels of androgen hormone receptors. Because the level of these hormones decreases in men older than 50, this could be a natural effect. However, the higher levels of androgen hormone receptors also support the researchers’ conclusion that androgens might trigger the mechanism leading to prostate cancer in younger patients but not among the elderly.

Study findings are published in Cancer Cell.

Source: EMBL.