A study looking at genetic changes to identify men at increased risk of prostate cancer (BARCODE 1 Pilot)

Cancer type:

Prostate cancer

Status:

Results

Phase:

Pilot

This study was done to see if it was possible to run a larger study looking at the genetic risk of prostate cancer. It was for men who hadn’t been diagnosed with prostate cancer.

The study was open for people to join between 2016 and 2018. The research team published the results in 2021.

More about this trial

There are several factors that can change someone’s risk of developing prostate cancer. This includes certain gene changes.

The research team had already identified 130 different gene changes they thought could affect prostate cancer risk. Each one can change someone’s risk a little bit. So if people have lots of these changes, their risk might change quite a lot.

The team analysed the genetic material (DNA) in saliva samples, to look for gene changes. They gave each gene change a score, and added the scores together. This gives an overall genetic risk score. They call this the polygenic risk score, or PRS.

The main aim of this research is to find out if doctors can use someone’s genetic profile to assess their risk of developing prostate cancer.

But first they had to do a small version of the study (a pilot study) to see if it would be possible to run a larger study.

Summary of results

The team found that it would be possible to run a larger study looking at the genetic risk of prostate cancer.

Study design
This study was for White men aged 55 to 69, who hadn’t been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Or had a prostate biopsy in the last year.

GP surgeries wrote to men to ask them if they’d like to take part. If they did, they gave a saliva sample. The research team analysed the DNA to give them a genetic risk score.

Men with a higher genetic risk score were offered screening for prostate cancer. This included:

blood test
urine test
physical examination of the prostate
MRI scan
prostate biopsy

The research team then looked at how many of these men had prostate cancer.

Results
The research team wrote to 1,434 men to ask them if they’d like to take part in this study:

375 men (26%) said they would like to take part
25 were offered screening for prostate cancer
18 had screening tests
7 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer

All 7 men had early stage prostate cancer that didn’t need treatment at that time. They have regular appointments and tests to check for signs that the cancer has started to grow. This is called active surveillance.

Conclusion
The team concluded that it would be possible to run a larger study to assess the genetic risk score for prostate cancer.

They have gone on to run the full BARCODE 1 study. They hope that around 5,000 men will take part.

We have more information about the full study on our website:

A study of a genetic test to identify people who have an increased risk of developing prostate cancer (BARCODE 1 Study)

More detailed information
There is more information about the results of this pilot study in the reference below.

Please note, this article is not in plain English. It has been written for health care professionals and researchers.

The BARCODE1 Pilot: a feasibility study of using germline single nucleotide polymorphisms to target prostate cancer screening
S Benafif and others
BJU International, 2021. Issue 129, pages 325 to 336.

Where this information comes from
We have based this summary on the information in the article above. This has been reviewed by independent specialists (peer reviewed Open a glossary item ) and published in a medical journal. We have not analysed the data ourselves. As far as we are aware, the link we list above is active and the article is free and available to view.