Predicting Prostate Cancer Recurrence by Gene Expression Analysis of Formalin-Fixed, Paraffin Embedded Tissue

摘要

Prostate cancer is the leading cancer diagnosed in men and accounts for approximately 30,000 deaths per year in the US. In addition to large racial differences in outcome, other factors affecting prognosis include clinical stage, Gleason grade, and PSA levels. The genetic contribution to prostate cancer risk is well accepted, but less has been done to evaluate the genetic contribution to recurrence risk and variation by race. With the advent of newer technologies, discovery of molecular signatures of prognosis are now possible and are the focus of this study. Using Illumina's DASL assay, we are evaluating 529 genes for expression differences comparing men with, and without, recurrence. The gene expression sets for African American men will be compared to those for white men to identify genes contributing to racial disparities in outcome. A unique and diverse patient population has been identified, and 649 tumor samples have been processed for gene expression studies of prostate cancer recurrence and racial disparities in outcome. We finalized the panel of genes to be included in the expression array and production of the custom assay has been completed. All clinical data has been assembled. The DASL assay has been run on our samples and these gene expression results are being analyzed.