Age-specific risk of incident prostate cancer and risk of death from prostate cancer defined by the number of affected family members.

BACKGROUND

The thorough assessment of familial prostate cancer (PCa) risk is as important as ever to provide a basis for clinical counselling and screening recommendations.

OBJECTIVE

Our aim was to determine the age-specific risks of PCa and the risk of death from PCa according to the number and the age of affected first-degree relatives.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: The nationwide Swedish Family-Cancer Database includes a record of >11.8 million individuals and their cancers from 1958 to 2006. All men from the database with identified parents (>3.9 million individuals) were followed between 1961 and 2006. The study included 26 651 PCa patients, of whom 5623 were familial.

MEASUREMENTS

The age-specific hazard ratios (HRs) of PCa and the HRs of death from PCa were calculated according to the number and age of affected fathers and brothers.

RESULTS AND LIMITATIONS

The HRs of PCa diagnosis increased with the number of affected relatives and decreased with increasing age. The highest HRs were observed for men <65 yr of age with three affected brothers (HR: approximately 23) and the lowest for men between 65 and 74 yr of age with an affected father (HR: approximately 1.8). The HRs increased with decreasing paternal or fraternal diagnostic age. The pattern of the risk of death from familial PCa was similar to the incidence data.

CONCLUSIONS

The present results should guide clinical counselling and demonstrate the vast increases in risk when multiple first-degree relatives are affected.