Nat Commun: Polygenic Risk Score (PHS) to assess the risk of prostate cancer

Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer among men in the world, and it causes a large number of morbidities and deaths.
Screening for prostate cancercan reduce morbidity and mortality, and targeted and personalized diagnosis strategies can help avoid over-diagnosis and over-treatment of the disease.

Previous studies have shown that genetic risk grading is expected to be used to determine individuals who are susceptible to cancer, and polygenic models can be used to assess the overall risk of disease development.
The polygenic risk score is related to the age at diagnosis of prostate cancer patients, and can improve the accuracy of screening for Europeans.

In this study, researchers evaluated the effect of polygenic risk score (PHS) on a multi-ethnic data set of 80,491 men (49,916 prostate patients and 30,575 controls).
The results showed that the PHS score was related to the age of patients diagnosed with any aggressive cancer (Gleason score ≥7, T3-T4 stage, PSA ≥10ng/mL or lymph node metastasis/distant metastasis) and prostate cancer-specific death.

The relationship between PHS and prostate cancer

The results showed that in European (n=71,856), Asian (n=2,382) and African (n=6,253) populations, the association of cancer was very significant, and the risk ratios of prostate cancer were 5.
54, 4.
49 and 2.
54, respectively.
The risk ratios of prostate cancer, aggressive cancer and prostate cancer specific death were 5.
32, 5.
88, and 5.
68, respectively.

All in all, the study classified the risk of male prostate cancer patients in a multi-ethnic data set through a polygenic risk score to assess whether they have any aggressive and fatal prostate cancer.