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

Abstract

Interpretation: Polygenic hazard scores give personalized genetic risk estimates and can inform the decisions of whether and at what age to screen a man for PCa.Funding: Department of Defense #W81XWH-13-1-0391

High-Definition Medicine

“…For example, with our partial knowledge of the polygenic factors underlying disease risk, genetic risk scores can still identify high-risk individuals who benefit most from initiation of lifestyle changes or preventative treatments. Examples include; ( 1 ) a 27-SNP genetic risk score for coronary artery disease was able to identify high-risk individuals who would benefit most from statin therapy and was projected to lead to a threefold reduction in the number of people treated to prevent one heart attack in high- versus low-risk individuals (Mega et al, 2015), ( 2 ) a 77-SNP genetic risk score for breast cancer was found to be more accurate than standard age-based criteria for guiding decision making on when mammographic screening should be initiated (Mavaddat et al, 2015), and ( 3 ) a 54-SNP genetic risk score for prostate cancer was able to identify high risk individuals and dramatically improve the interpretation and positive predictive value of a positive prostate specific antigen screen (Seibert et al, 2016). Thus, genetic risk scores for many diseases are already capable of informing health management for high-risk individuals.…”