Objective: We evaluated if epidemiological features of familial prostate cancer are associated with certain clinical or histopathological characteristics of the disease.
Methods: 463 German patients with familial prostate cancer who underwent radical prostatectomy were stratified according to several epidemiological criteria: (1). the apparent mode of disease transmission, (2). the average age of onset and (3). number of affected relatives/family, (4). whether or not they met the Johns Hopkins criteria of hereditary prostate cancer. The variables analysed included the Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) and the digital rectal examination at diagnosis, histopathological characteristics of the prostatectomy specimen and relapse free 5-year survival rates. These characteristics were compared within the subsets of familial patients and compared to 492 control patients with sporadic prostate cancer.
Results: Age of onset was the only clinical parameter differentiating familial and sporadic prostate cancer. Otherwise there was no association between epidemiological features of familial predisposition and the clinical presentation or outcome of the disease.
Conclusions: Familial and sporadic prostate cancer seem to be the same disease. Alternatively it may be concluded that the common epidemiological features of familial prostate cancer are not useful to tell tumours that are based on inherited susceptibility apart from those that are not. Whether hereditary prostate cancer is clinically distinct from sporadic forms cannot be determined before the underlying genetic alterations are identified.