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CNN Live Sunday

Scientists Identify Second Gene Associated With Prostate Cancer

Aired January 20, 2002 - 15:51   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in men in the United States. In fact, it's estimated that 189,000 new cases will be diagnosed this year alone. Scientists are reporting they have found a second gene that is associated with prostate cancer, a discovery that could lead to new treatments and even early detection.

CNN's medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins us with this breakthrough today. This sounds pretty interesting?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It is interesting. It's one of these things that's interesting down the road, not necessarily interesting right at this moment for men who have prostate cancer, but about 31,000 men in the United States die each year from prostate cancer. As Carol said, this is the second gene that they found that's linked to inherited forms of prostate cancer.

Now, it's probably the second gene, called RNASEL, that's sort of the scientific term there, it's only responsible for a tiny, tiny fraction of prostate cancers. However, now that scientists have found it, they hope to be able to look at it and to learn exactly how it works and the mechanisms that it sets in place for prostate cancers. Why those cells go haywire, why they turn cancerous? And that's why doctors are excited about it.

LIN: So what does that mean if you don't have prostate cancer right now? Can you go to your doctor and get tested?

COHEN: No. For example, if you don't have prostate cancer but your father had it and your uncle had it and you're worried, you can't just go to your doctor and say, hey, could you test me for this. It's not ready in that form yet. There's also some question as to whether or not you would even want to be tested if that kind of test were available, because what would you do about it?

LIN: Yeah. And what would you do with the knowledge if you had it.

COHEN: Exactly.

LIN: But do you predict that someday it might be like breast cancer, or the breast examinations that we get every year where you can actually start screening yourself for early signs? COHEN: Well, it could one day turn out to be. There are a couple of breast cancer genes that doctors know about, and they have known about these for a very long time now, called the BRCA gene. And women who, for example, they have a mother and an aunt who had breast cancer, they can go to the doctor and say, hey, test me for the breast cancer gene. And many women do this, and even if the test turns out positive and they carry the gene, many women decide to have the breasts removed even if they're cancer free, because they have a relatively high likelihood of developing breast cancer later in life.

Now maybe years and years and years down the road, men will make certain decisions based on having some kind of a test. Maybe they would decide, for example to start taking certain drugs, even though they don't have cancer. So that could be way, way down the road, where we could be heading.

LIN: If this gene is detected, it might determine whether you have prostate cancer. Does it determine how aggressive the cancer becomes?

COHEN: What it would determine is your likelihood of developing prostate cancer later in life. For example, I would give you sort of a scenario for how this would work. If someone's father and uncle and brother have prostate cancer, and the 20-year-old man says, gee, my father and uncle and brother have it, I'm going to get tested. Years later, this again not something that you can do now, you could get tested and it would tell him the likelihood that he would develop it. It might say, you know what, you have got a 60 percent likelihood of developing prostate cancer before the age of 60. And then, he might be able to make some medical decisions based on knowing that likelihood.

LIN: You have been covering this story and similar stories for quite some time now, Elizabeth. I'm wondering, for yourself personally, have you decided, given what you know, where you would want to know.

COHEN: Well, obviously prostate cancer I'm not worried about. But if, for example, if in my family there was the breast cancer gene and I had many relatives who had it, I think I would have to think long and hard about whether or not I would want to be tested for that gene.

It would cause great psychological -- it would have great psychological importance, you know, if I knew at the age of 36 that I had a 70 percent likelihood of developing breast cancer. I'm not sure that I would want to know that, and I'm not sure I'd want to be faced with the decision, gee, should I, you know, have one or both of my breasts removed. I mean, that's a huge decision to make.

So these are not easy, quick decisions. And doctors tell patients, we don't know what to tell you. We don't know if you should get the test or not. It's not an easy answer.

LIN: So what good is it at this stage? COHEN: Well, some women say, you know what, I'd rather -- I have a friend actually who had her breasts removed, because she said, "I watched my mother and my sister die of breast cancer. I would rather have them removed, even if they are healthy, than go through that."

LIN: All right. Thank you very much, Elizabeth. We'll see you later in the afternoon for more on these developments.

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