Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms: A New Paradigm in Predicting the Risk of Prostate Cancer

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Prostate cancer (PC) is a most important health care problem because of its high prevalence, health-related costs, and mortality. Even though most patients have clinically localized and indolent tumors at diagnosis, worldwide, this disease still holds second place in the leading causes of cancer deaths. Research on susceptibility genes is one of hot issues in risk factors of prostate cancer. Nevertheless, the confirmation of prostate cancer susceptibility genes has been challenging. Thus focusing on the increasing number of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that have been suggested to be implicated in the development and progression of PC. While individual SNPs are only moderately associated with PC risk, in combination, they have a stronger association. Therefore, identification of numerous variations in genes and analysis of their effects may lead to a better understanding of their impact on gene function and health of an individual. This improved knowledge may provide a starting point for the development of new useful SNP markers for medical testing and a safer individualized medication to treat the most common devastating disorders. This will revolutionize the medical field in the future. To illustrate the effect of SNPs on gene function and phenotype, this review focuses on genetic susceptibility of prostate cancer and role of single nucleotide polymorphism and revealing the impact of SNPs on the development and progression of prostate cancer.