ROCHESTER, MINN. -- Mayo Clinic researchers report that the presence of certain changes in chromosome 8 in men with advanced prostate cancer predict a more deadly tumor type.
Researchers studied tissue samples of 144 men who were operated on for advanced prostate cancer between 1966 and 1987. They compared this information with the patient's cancer status, obtained from a long-term follow-up study. They found that men with a specific set of abnormalities (including extra copies of the c-myc gene) on chromosome 8 had a 30 percent survival rate after 10 years, compared to a 78 percent 10-year survival among men with normal chromosomes.
The lead author of the study, Robert Jenkins, Ph.D., says that the information could help identify patients who may require closer follow-up and perhaps more aggressive early treatment of their cancers. The report was published in a recent issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Mike O'Hara
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