Established prostate cancer susceptibility variants are not associated with disease outcome

Recent genome-wide association studies have been successful in identifying common sequence variants associated with prostate cancer risk; however, their importance in prostate cancer prognosis remains unknown. To assess confirmed prostate cancer susceptibility variants with prostate cancer prognosis, we genotyped 16 established susceptibility variants in a Swedish cohort of 2,875 prostate cancer cases, ascertained between 2001 and 2003, with complete follow-up regarding vital status through January 2008. Cox regression models, adjusted for age, clinical stage, pathologic grade, nodal or distant metastases, and diagnostic serum levels of prostate-specific antigen level, were used to assess association between risk variants and prostate cancer-specific survival. During follow-up, 626 men died, and of those, 440 had prostate cancer classified as their underlying cause of death. We found no association between any of the explored sequence variants and prostate cancer-specific mortality, either in exploring individual variants or in assessing the cumulative effect of all variants. We conclude that hitherto established prostate cancer susceptibility variants are not associated with the lethal potential of prostate cancer.