Study in eLife Explores Prostate Cancer Insights Found with Multi-Ancestry Polygenic Risk Score

In eLife, investigators from the University of Southern California, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and elsewhere present findings from a validation analysis of a prostate cancer-focused polygenic risk score that takes individuals' ancestry and age-related risk into account. Based on data for 31,925 ancestrally diverse individuals with prostate cancer and more than 490,500 control individuals from the Million Veteran Program and other studies, the authors found that men in the highest risk group based on PRS had significantly increased prostate cancer risk, though the extent of that risk varied with ancestry and age. While prostate cancer risk was 3.8 times higher in European men from the top PRS group compared to their counterparts in the average risk category by PRS, for example, a similar comparison of Hispanic or African ancestry men showed an increased risk of just 3.2 times or 2.8 times, respectively, for the top PRS category. The enhanced cancer risk associated with a higher PRS score waned with age across the ancestry groups, the authors note, adding that "clinical study of PRS is warranted to determine if the PRS could be used for risk-stratified screening and early detection."