The Common Variant Rs1447295 on Chromosome 8q24 and Prostate Cancer Risk: Results from an Australian Population-based Case-control Study

A recent study from deCode reported an association between common variants in the region 8q24 and prostate cancer risk. The strongest association was found with the single nucleotide polymorphism rs1447295. We genotyped 821 prostate cancer cases and 732 population controls for rs1447295 to test the association between this common variant and prostate cancer risk, and examine whether this association depends on Gleason score. Our case-control study confirmed the association between rs1447295 and prostate cancer risk (P = 0.0005). The odds ratio (OR) for prostate cancer was 1.52 [95% confidence interval (CI), 1.20-1.93] for carriers of any A allele compared with noncarriers. The OR for Gleason score 5 to 6 prostate cancer (1.48; 95% CI, 1.13-1.95) was similar to the OR for Gleason score 7 to 10 prostate cancer (1.58; 95% CI, 1.18-2.11, P for heterogeneity = 0.7). We conclude that the A allele of rs1447295 is associated with a higher risk of prostate cancer regardless of tumor aggressiveness, suggesting that such a variant, or a variant in linkage disequilibrium with it, plays a role early in prostate carcinogenesis.