Each year countless men are faced with the uncertainty that comes from being diagnosed with prostate cancer. Receiving this life-changing news can be extremely daunting, not only for the person diagnosed, but also for their family and friends.

Each year countless men are faced with the uncertainty that comes from being diagnosed with prostate cancer. Receiving this life-changing news can be extremely daunting, not only for the person diagnosed, but also for their family and friends.

Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in Australian men. With one in eight Tasmanian men being diagnosed in their lifetime, finding a cure has never been more important.

Thanks to the hard work of researchers at the Menzies Research Institute Tasmania, we now have one more piece of the genetic puzzle that will help us to identify men at a greater risk of developing prostate cancer.

Menzies' Senior Research Fellow and Member, Dr Jo Dickinson and her team have worked closely with an international team of researchers to find seven new regions across the human genome that increase the chances of developing prostate cancer. The study was recently published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature Genetics. 

"We looked at the genomes of almost 60,000 men to identify these seven new regions," Dr Dickinson said.

"This research takes the total number of regions of the human genome associated with an increased prostate cancer risk to over 40."

Together these regions account for almost 25 per cent of the inherited risk. This means that the one per cent of men who carry most of these variants are almost four times more likely than an average man to have prostate cancer, giving them a nearly one in two chance of developing the disease.

"These findings greatly improve our understanding of prostate cancer and could potentially lead to improved diagnosis by allowing us to tailor our screening and treatment of men at risk of this disease," Dr Dickinson said.

Prostate cancer research at Menzies Research Institute Tasmania is proudly supported by the Australian Cancer Research Foundation through the establishment of the Tasmanian Inherited Cancer Centre, Cancer Australia, Cancer Council Tasmania, Tasmanian Community Fund and the Max Bruce Trust.

Information Released by:

Fiona Horwood, Communications Manager

Phone: 6226 7751 Mobile: 0409 357 384

Email: Fiona.Horwood@menzies.utas.edu.au

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