A variation in a gene that regulates inflammatory activity is associated with susceptibility to prostate cancer, Swedish researchers have shown. “Inflammation in the prostate may go unchecked in carriers with this (variant), leading to an increased risk for tumor development,” Dr. Henrik Gronberg and colleagues report in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Gronberg, at Umea University, and his team note that previous studies have shown altered levels of the gene in question, called MIC-1, in prostate cancer. This prompted the researchers to look at various subtypes of MIC-1 in 1383 prostate cancer patients and 780 comparison subjects, and found significant differences between the groups in the frequency of a genetic variant of MIC-1 dubbed H6D.
