More than one million American men suffer from prostate cancer but if diagnosed early, it can be treated. And now a new blood test may be able to help doctors figure out who is going to get it before the disease even develops.
It's the newest piece in the prostate cancer puzzle. Researchers at Wake Forest University discovered a man's DNA may reveal his risk before the disease occurs. They examined five places in the genetic code. When any four of them were abnormal, the odds of prostate cancer increased by as much as 500 percent.
Until now, the most reliable tool doctors had for measuring risk was family history.
Tim Wright learned he had prostate cancer after a PSA test. Only then did he discover he had relatives with the disease, too. The new blood test might have spared them all.
"We probably would have gotten checked sooner but there was no way to know that that was the case," Wright said.
So if this test is able to spot men with high risks of prostate cancer, the question becomes, what do doctors do then?
Dr. Herbert Lepore says high-tech advances are exciting but his best weapon is still the PSA test, early and often.
"Rather than doing some of these more complex genetics studies to assign risk, the simpler solution may be let's just screen everyone who is 40 instead of 50," Dr. Lepore said.
The new genetic test is not yet available to the public but it's already inspiring the cancer fighting community.
"Every step is a major step and something like this is absolutely phenomenal," said Bob Brown, prostate cancer patient and member of the American Cancer Society Foundation.
One out of every six men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer. This new test may not be able to prevent that but it could give many of them a life-saving head start on treatment.
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