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Higher levels of inflammation-associated cytokines correlate with poorer prostate cancer outcomes and may guide strategies to improve prostate cancer therapy.

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Genome-wide association studies have detected more than 30 inherited prostate cancer risk variants. While clearly associated with risk, their relationship with clinical outcome, particularly prostate cancer–specific mortality, is less well known. We investigated whether the risk variants are associated with various measures of disease aggressiveness and prostate cancer–specific mortality. In a cohort of 3,945 men of European ancestry with prostate cancer, we genotyped 36 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP): 35 known prostate cancer risk variants and one SNP (rs4054823) that was recently reported to be associated with prostate cancer aggressiveness. The majority of subjects had a diagnosis of prostate cancer between 1995 and 2004, and the cohort included a total of 580 prostate cancer–specific deaths. We evaluated associations between the 36 polymorphisms and prostate cancer survival, as well as other clinical parameters including age at diagnosis, prostate-specific antigen (PSA) at diagnosis, and Gleason score. Two SNPs, rs2735839 at chromosome 19q13 and rs7679673 at 4q24, were associated with prostate cancer–specific survival (P = 7 × 10−4 and 0.014, respectively). A total of 12 SNPs were associated with other variables (P < 0.05): age at diagnosis, PSA at diagnosis, Gleason score, and/or disease aggressiveness based on D’Amico criteria. Genotype status at rs4054823 was not associated with aggressiveness or outcome. Our results identify two common polymorphisms associated with prostate cancer–specific mortality.