Prostate Cancer More Likely to be Aggressive in Younger Men

In the last 20 years, there has been a 6-fold increase in the number of young men diagnosed with prostate cancer, a new study reveals.

Researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center claim that prostate cancer is more likely to be aggressive among younger men. Prostate cancer is listed as the most common cancer among American men aged  between 70-80 years. The American Cancer Society estimates that in 2014, there will be 233,000 new cases of prostate cancer in the United States and nearly 29,480 of them will die of it. About 1 in every 7 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Most of the prostate cancers are slow-growing and many older men are diagnosed with early stage of prostate cancer and die due to causes other than prostate cancer. But in the new study researchers found that when prostate cancer occurs at a younger age it is more likely because the tumor is growing rapidly.

"Early onset prostate cancer tends to be aggressive, striking down men in the prime of their life. These fast-growing tumors in young men might be entirely missed by screening because the timeframe is short before they start to show clinical symptoms," said Kathleen A. Cooney, M.D., professor of internal medicine and urology at the University of Michigan.

In this study, the researchers plan to evaluate the DNA of both normal and cancerous prostate tissue of men who were diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer before the age of 61. They will focus on whether the younger men were more likely to have inherited genetic mutation.

Men with family history of prostate cancer have a two-three-fold increased risk of developing the cancer and the risk is more for younger men with several affected relatives.

The researchers found that men with early onset of prostate cancer had more genetic variants when compared to men who were diagnosed with prostate cancer at a later age.  They emphasize on the need of genetic counseling or increased monitoring of younger men who have a family history of prostate cancer.

American men have 16 percent increased risk of developing prostate cancer in their lifetime and just 3 percent lifetime risk of dying from it. 

"The unexpectedly poor prognosis of advanced stage early onset prostate cancer supports the idea that a new clinical subtype might exist in the subset of men with early onset prostate cancer. This subtype is more aggressive and requires more specialty expertise, including genetic sequencing," Cooney said.

The finding was documented in Nature Reviews Urology.