A genetic risk score to guide age-specific, personalized prostate cancer screening

Abstract

BackgroundProstate-specific-antigen (PSA) screening resulted in reduced prostate cancer (PCa) mortality in a large clinical trial, but due to a high false-positive rate, among other concerns, many guidelines do not endorse universal screening and instead recommend an individualized decision based on each patients risk. Genetic risk may provide key information to guide the decisions of whether and at what age to screen an individual man for PCa.\n\nMethodsGenotype, PCa status, and age from 34,444 men of European ancestry from the PRACTICAL consortium database were analyzed to select single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with prostate cancer diagnosis. These SNPs were then incorporated into a survival analysis to estimate their effects on age at PCa diagnosis. The resulting polygenic hazard score (PHS) is an assessment of individual genetic risk. The final model was validated in an independent dataset comprised of 6,417 men with screening PSA and genotype data. PHS was calculated for these men to test for prediction of PCa-free survival. PHS was also combined with age-specific PCa incidence data from the U.S. population to generate a PCa-Risk (PCaR) age that relates a given mans risk to that of the population average. PHS and PCaR age were evaluated for prediction of positive predictive value (PPV) of PSA screening.\n\nFindingsPHS calculated from 54 SNPs was very highly predictive of age at PCa diagnosis for men in the validation set (p =10-53). PPV of PSA screening varied from 0.18 to 0.52 for men with low and high genetic risk, respectively. PHS modulates PCa-free survival curves by an estimated 20 years between men in the 1st or 99th percentiles of genetic risk.\n\nInterpretationPolygenic hazard scores give personalized genetic risk estimates and can inform the decisions of whether and at what age to screen a man for PCa.\n\nFundingDepartment of Defense #W81XWH-13-1-0391