"Different" Tumor Genes in Black Men.

• Position: PROSTATE CANCER

Black men in the U.S. are known to suffer disproportionately from prostate cancer, but few studies have investigated whether genetic differences in prostate tumors could have anything to do with these health disparities.

Now, in the largest study of its kind to date, researchers from Boston University, Northwestern University, and the University of California, San Francisco, have identified genes that are more frequently altered in prostate tumors from men with African ancestry compared to other racial groups, though the reasons for these differences is not known.

None of the individual tumor differences that were identified are likely to explain significant differences in health outcomes or to prevent black patients from benefiting from a new generation of precision prostate cancer therapies.

The newly identified gene variants potentially could lead to precision prostate cancer therapies specifically focused on men with African ancestry, and will inform broader efforts by the National...