
LONDON – 53 years old, a wife, four children, in front of you a life to live without the fear of cancer: the gene for breast cancer not only affects women. According to a study of 2,000 men from the Institute of Cancer Research in London (ICR), BRCA 1 and 2 have an impact on the susceptibility of the bearer to prostate cancer and there are those who prefer not to risk. In the wake of revelations of Angelina Jolie, who said that he had undergone a preventive double mastectomy, emerges the story of a businessman from London who, for the same reasons, chose to remove his prostate.
DECISION-Like Jolie, he witnessed his mother's illness, as well as an aunt. How Angelina, he was perfectly healthy. When he discovered he had inherited the gene has decided to protect themselves. He did not want to live with the sword of Damocles over the head. The doctors were initially reluctant to carry out the intervention, which, according to the Sunday Timesrappresenta the first preventive removal of the prostate in the world. The operation in fact not only has serious consequences on fertility, but can also trigger erectile dysfunction and incontinence. The man also seemed to have no reason to fear the worst. Magnetic resonance imaging and blood tests did not detect any abnormality. At the end of the surgeon Roger Kirby was convinced when the biopsy showed microscopic malignant mutations. '' If it was not a carrier of the gene – said – we would not have this surgery done anyway, even with biopsy results in hand. " The real surprise came after the surgery, when a thorough examination of the prostate found "a significant level of cancer cells." The patient is now "going well", said Kirby. "For those who have the gene this type of intervention can be a true liberation."
STUDY – Ros Eeles, a professor in the center of London-based research and director of the study, is now looking 26. 000 volunteers with family members who have had prostate problems for monitoring of five years. The goal is to assess whether additional tests are able to prevent cancer and if, as a system, it should be offered to those who have a high susceptibility to this type of carcinoma. According to the research of Eeles, the carrier of the BRCA 2 gene has eight times the risk of contracting prostate cancer, the carrier of the BRCA 1 triple the average.




