Description: Purpose: Recent data suggest that neuroendocrine signaling may influence progression in some cancers. We aimed to determine whether genes within the five major stress-related signaling pathways are differentially expressed in tumor tissue when comparing prostate cancer patients with lethal and nonlethal disease. Experimental Design: We measured mRNA expression of 51 selected genes involved in predetermined stress-related signaling pathways (adrenergic, glucocorticoid, dopaminergic, serotoninergic, and muscarinic systems) in tumor tissue and normal prostate tissue collected from prostate cancer patients in the Physicians' Health Study ( n = 150; n = 82 with normal) and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study ( n = 254; n = 120 with normal). We assessed differences in pathway expression in relation to prostate cancer lethality as the primary outcome and to biomarkers as secondary outcomes. Results: Differential mRNA expression of genes within the adrenergic ( P = 0.001), glucocorticoid ( P 〈 0.0001), serotoninergic ( P = 0.0019), and muscarinic ( P = 0.0045) pathways in tumor tissue was associated with the risk of lethality. The adrenergic pathway was also statistically significant ( P = 0.001) when comparing against differential expression of genes not involved in the pathways. In adjacent normal prostate tissue, none of the pathways was clearly differentially expressed between lethal and nonlethal prostate cancer. The glucocorticoid and adrenergic pathways were associated with cell proliferation, while the glucocorticoid pathway was additionally associated with angiogenesis and perineural invasion. Conclusions: Our study suggests that stress-related signaling pathways, particularly the adrenergic and glucocorticoid, may be dysregulated in the tumors of men whose prostate cancer proves to be lethal, and motivates further investigation of these pathways in functional studies. Clin Cancer Res; 22(3); 765–72. ©2015 AACR .

Description: Purpose: Breast and prostate cancer co-occur in families, and women with a family history of prostate cancer are at increased breast cancer risk. Prostate cancer is among the most heritable cancers, but few studies have investigated its association with familial breast cancer. The objective of this study is to investigate the extent to which familial breast or prostate cancer in first-degree relatives increases prostate cancer risk. Experimental Design: A prospective study of 37,002 U.S. men in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. During the 16-year follow-up to 2012, 4,208 total and 344 lethal cases were diagnosed. Using cause-specific hazards regression, we estimated the multivariable HRs and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for associations between familial breast or prostate cancer and total and lethal prostate cancer. Results: Those with familial breast cancer had a 21% greater risk of prostate cancer overall (95% CI, 1.10–1.34), and a 34% greater risk of lethal disease (HR 1.34; 95% CI, 0.96–1.89). Family history of prostate cancer alone was associated with a 68% increased risk of total disease (95% CI, 1.53–1.83) and a 72% increased risk of lethal disease (95% CI, 1.25–2.38). Men with a family history of both cancers were also at elevated risk. Conclusions: Our study found that men with a family history of breast or prostate cancer had elevated prostate cancer risks, including risk of lethal disease. These findings have translational relevance for cancer risk prediction in men.