Where are the prostate cancer genes?--A summary of eight genome wide searches

Abstract

Background: There is strong evidence for genetic susceptibility to prostate cancer, but most of the genes underlying this susceptibility remain to be identified.

Methods: We reviewed the results of eight genome-wide linkage searches based on 1,293 families with multiple cases of prostate cancer.

Results: Across these studies, 11 linkage peaks with LOD scores in excess of 2 were identified. However, no chromosomal region was reported as significant at this level by more than one study and only one corresponded to a peak previously suggested by another group.

Conclusions: These results indicate that prostate cancer is genetically complex, and that combined analyses of large family sets will be required to evaluate reliably the linkage evidence.