Prostate Cancer Runs in Familes

I recently found out that another relative, an uncle, has advanced prostate cancer. He is forgoing aggressive treatment due to his age. That makes 4 with prostate cancer in my family.

My brother had prostate cancer before he passed from a heart attack. I believe my father had it too.

My dad had PCa and my mother had breast cancer.

Face it, cancer is very prevalent and Incidence increases as we age. This doesn’t mean it has tendencies to “run in families” on a widespread basis suggesting a hereditary connection. As we know PCa probability roughly equates to age.

So if a father and his three brothers and their 8 sons all live into their 80’s, because they all become old males there is great probability of several being diagnosed with PCa. Even greater probability of some having PCa but never diagnosed. The common thread......family?.....or old maleness?

Now in the very rare circumstance where a father was dx in his 50’s and both sons also diagnosed in their 50’s, that might signal some family association. But such a situation would be very rare.

Of course there are demonstrated genetic situations like the BRCA Mutation that inordinately increases probabilities of incidence. But it doesn’t guarantee incidence and the numbers are relatively low. Overall 1 in 400 in the USA have the gene and with breast cancer the incidence is about 1-2%. My wife had BCa twice (not a recurrence). Her maternal grandmother and a maternal aunt also had BCa. My wife was tested for BRCA and was negative. Though the three incidents looked like it runs in the family, if you look at all the women in the family their incidence is actually less than expected based on the overall probabilities.

If we look at the Total human family, then yes, it is running rampant.

I am the first on my family tree but that could be because few males live past their mid-60s due to heart disease. I'd made that discovery in a college biology class back in the 70s when we did a family tree and looked at causes of death and what might be done to prevent them. I noticed that those males pretty much all smoked, never exercised, ate a diet high in fat and red meat (gout was common too), and most were overweight. That's when I changed my lifestyle. I wasn't a smoker but I did take up regular exercise (biking and regular racquetball and volleyball), changed my diet to vegetarian, and kept a normal weight. So far I've dodged the cardio incidents although without lisinopril I would have high blood pressure. The prostate cancer is just one of those things but my sons will have to be vigilant.

Back in the late 1990's/early 2000's, my Dad submitted family information to researcher on this topic as well. At the time, he was in the mid-point of his PC journey. What I recall him telling me at the time was that as far back as anyone knew, "every man in the family has had prostate problems".

Father died of PCa in the seventies, he was 67. I do not remember what treatment he has, if any. Four years with blood in urine and progressive tiredness and four really bad last months.
From my mother branch, she and her mother died of genre related cancer (breast and ovarian).
With my small knowledge in pathology I believe my path report shows clues of family related disease (papillary type grade, 5a). Not genomic test to confirm it.

I'm one of four boys in our family. Three of the four of us were diagnosed with PCa--all in our 50s. The brother that was not diagnosed remains wary and stays on top of his PSA.

From a larger perspective, both of my parents died of cancer. Mom of colon cancer at age 63, Dad of pancreatic cancer at age 73. Oh, and one of my brothers died of complications from a bone marrow transplant to treat a blood cancer at age 56. Sort of makes me think I should start taking social security early at age 62.

My son is 51, very well and expensively educated (I am sure I bought one of his Ivy League professors a nice beach condo say on Maui), successful lawyer. He declines to have regular PSA monitoring. He declines doctors in general. Agrees with his mom (several wives ago in my case), that no news is good news. She is healthy as can be and leads my handicapping odds to reach a century, so maybe he is right. Still I wish he would test PSA annually.

Bill

PS for Bill. I was a long term newspaper lover as well. My local is among the worst rags going and I have rejected it for 20 years. In your opinion, what should I be reading? I remember Mark Twain saying “if you don’t read a newspaper, you are uninformed. And if you do read a newspaper, your are misinformed”. Just how I have felt for so long.

JNF said...
I remember Mark Twain saying “if you don’t read a newspaper, you are uninformed. And if you do read a newspaper, your are misinformed”.

Another great Mark Twain quote! A new one for me. I also like his quote "There are three kinds of lies: Lies, dam(n) lies, and statistics"

Rob, so sorry to hear about your wife’s recurrence. Hope she has a successful second round of treatment