US Launches Study to Understand Blacks and Prostate Cancer

Black men are twice as likely to die of prostate cancer as white men. Government scientists announced Tuesday that they are launching a study to try to find out why.

The goal is to collect samples of 10,000 prostate cancer patients to find out if genes, stress, segregation or other factors "Understanding why African American men are more likely to be diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer than men from other racial and ethnic groups is a critical and unanswered question in research on disparities in cancer, "said the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Ned Sharpless, director of the National Cancer Institute, said in a statement

$ 26.5 million study, which is part of the 21st Century Cancer Moonshot Cures initiative from the Obama administration, will be a joint effort The National Cancer Institute and the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, both of which are part of the NIH Institutes, as well as the Prostate Cancer Foundation.

Prostate cancer is diagnosed in approximately 164,000 American men each year. According to the American Cancer Society, it kills about 29,000 people a year.

"African-American men have about a 15% chance of developing prostate cancer in their lifetime, compared to about 10% for white and African men. American men are more likely to be diagnosed with an aggressive disease, "said the NIH in a statement.

" In addition, the risk of dying from prostate cancer among African-American men is About 4% Men.

A number of factors could explain the differences, said Damali Martin, who will help lead NCI's work on the study. "The ability to integrate genetic and environmental factors, including including individual, neighborhood and societal factors, in a large study will allow us to better understand how all of these factors contribute to the aggressiveness of prostate cancer, "said Martin

L & # The team will find the 10,000 participants using information on the cancer database.

"No group in the world is more affected by prostate cancer than men of origin African. biological reasons for these disparities, or the total impact of environmental factors, "said Dr. Jonathan Simons, CEO of the Prostate Cancer Foundation.