to be associated with prostate cancer but untested in

the real world. This gene is related to how the prostate grows

and can certainly affect how cancer can grow within the prostate gland.

What we did in our study was we took 4,000 subjects

We had biopsied them to determine if they had prostate cancer or not

and we tested this mutation.

What we found was some very striking

data. Number one it is a rare mutation but,

although it's very rare, it has a highly powerful effect

on the patients with the mutation, and that patients who

do have it, have up to a fourteen-fold increase in

risk of developing prostate cancer, especially in the younger men

and especially in the men with a family history of the disease. So it's a ---

it'll become a very important tool in

detecting and screening for prostate cancer using a genetic test.

So in the future, we hope to incorporate

this genetic test, and other tests that we're working on

in our Prostate Cancer Risk Calculator, at prostaterisk.ca

and what that risk calculator will do, will take

the PSA value, which is still a good test for prostate cancer

we'll take other risk factors, and in addition

it will take your genetic make-up, with the HOXB13 being

one of them, and we'll be able to better evaluate and estimate

an individual's risk for prostate cancer.