Higher frequency of familial clustering of prostate cancer in French-Canadian men

Abstract

Purpose: Prostate cancer is the second cause of cancer related death in North American men. We investigated the frequency of familial clustering in a French-Canadian population of prostate cancer cases.

Materials and methods: Between October 2004 and September 2005, 179 consecutively seen patients with localized prostate cancer identified each of their parents as being of French-Canadian descent. They were asked for their family history of cancer in first-degree relatives, age at diagnosis, whether affected relatives were alive, age and markers of tumor aggressiveness, including prostate specific antigen, Gleason and disease stage. ANOVA was used to compare the distribution of quantitative factors according to qualitative factors identified in our population. Differences between qualitative factors were assessed by the Fisher exact test. All p values were 2-sided.

Results: Mean age at diagnosis was 67 years. A total of 45 French-Canadian patients (25.1%) had at least 1 first-degree relative with prostate cancer, including 34 (19%) with 1 first-degree relative, 9 with a father-son pair, 25 with a brother-brother pair and 11 (6.1%) with at least 2 first-degree relatives. In our series the frequency of familial clustering defined by at least 1 relative with prostate cancer was high. We found a higher percent of French-Canadian men with at least 1 first-degree relative with prostate cancer than what was previously reported for an unselected population in Canada (25.1% vs 14.7%, p <0.0001).

Conclusions: Those preliminary results open a new perspective to a better understanding of familial prostate cancer in the Province of Quebec.