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Although some types of prostate cancer have a strong heritable component (i.e., the more affected first-degree relatives, the higher the risk for developing prostate cancer), many of the candidate tumor-suppressor genes that have been identified by genetic linkage studies have not been validated. A team of Swedish investigators evaluated 16 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in five chromosomal regions (three at 8q24, one at 17q12, and one at 17q24.3) that have been identified, by genome-wide scans, as being associated with prostate cancer. Because each of these SNPs individually has only a modest association with prostate cancer, the researchers tested whether combinations of SNPs conferred higher risk.
In a population-based case-contro…