BACKGROUND. Twenty-four prostate cancer (PCa) risk-associated single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in Chinese men have been cataloged. We evaluated whether these SNPs can independently predict outcomes of prostate biopsy, and improve the predictive performance of existing clinical variables. METHODS. Three hundred eight consecutive patients that underwent prostate biopsy for detection of PCa at Huashan Hospital, Shanghai, China between April 2011 and August 2012 were recruited. Clinical variables such as serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels and peripheral blood samples were collected prior to a 10-core biopsy. A genetic score based on these 24 PCa associated SNPs was calculated for each individual. RESULTS. Among 308 patients underwent prostate biopsy, 141 (45.8%) were diagnosed with PCa. Genetic score was significantly higher in patients with PCa (median = 1.30) than without (median = 0.89), P = 3.81 × 10−6. The difference remained significant after adjusting for age and total PSA, P = 0.007. The PCa detection rate increased with increasing genetic score; 26.3%, 43.2%, and 60.0% for men with lower (<0.5), average (0.5–1.5), and higher (>1.5) genetic score, respectively, P−trend = 0.0003. For patients with moderately elevated PSA levels (1.6–20 ng/ml), the PCa detection rate was 31.2% overall and was 16.7%, 31.2%, and 40.9% for men with lower (<0.5), average (0.5–1.5), and higher (>1.5) genetic score, respectively, P−trend = 0.03. For patients with PSA 2: 20 ng/ml, however, the PCa detection rates were high (>69%) regardless of genetic score. CONCLUSION. A genetic score based on PCa risk-associated SNPs is an independent predictor of prostate biopsy outcomes in Chinese men and may be helpful to determine the need for prostate biopsy among patients within a ‘‘gray zone’’ of PCa risk.

We have studied the shot-noise characteristics of semiconductor quantum dots using Keldysh's perturbation theory based on nonequilibrium Green's function techniques, where the electron-electron interaction is well described in terms of self-energy. We have found that the shot noise at peaks of Coulomb oscillations decreases sharply to almost zero when the two barriers are equal and increases to almost the full Poisson noise for the dot with highly unequal barriers. We have also found that the Coulomb interaction between electrons in the current-carrying state and the bound state hardly affect the noise characteristics in Coulomb oscillations. As for the Coulomb staircase, we have found that the shot noise is suppressed over each current step and the noise power ratio to the full Poisson noise changes periodically with the current. However, the noise power ratio has a minimum value of about 0.4 and is 0.5 on average for a dot with equal barriers, and for unequal barriers it is always larger than that for equal barriers on an average.

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