Gyorgy Petrovics on Frequency of BRCA Mutations in African American Prostate Cancer Patients

Gyorgy Petrovics, PhD, associate director, Center for Prostate Disease Research (CPDR), research associate professor in the department of surgery at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS), discusses BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations in African American prostate cancer patients.

In a study, the genes of over 1,000 Caucasian and African American prostate cancer patients were sequenced to look for any mutations.

The patients were in an equal-access healthcare system, which is important because it allowed different ethnic groups to be compared without any concerns about socioeconomic differences, said Petrovics.

The study found that the African American patients had a BRCA mutation rate of 7.3% versus 2.2% in Caucasian patients, said Petrovics. They also found that patients who had BRCA mutations had a higher chance of developing metastasis. This is a significant difference in risk between racial groups that will impact patient care, said Petrovics.

This study is a collaboration between the Center for Prostate Disease Research, Department of Surgery, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center under the leadership of Shiv Srivastava, PhD, Inger L. Rosner, MD and David G. McLeod, MD and the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, lead by Michael Dean, PhD and William Dahut, MD.