Men with BRCA2 mutations have been found to be at increased risk of developing prostate cancer. There is a recent report that BRCA2 carriers with prostate cancer have poorer survival than noncarrier prostate cancer patients. In this study, we compared survival of men with a BRCA2 mutation and prostate cancer with that of men with a BRCA1 mutation and prostate cancer. We obtained the age at diagnosis, age at death or current age from 182 men with prostate cancer from families with a BRCA2 mutation and from 119 men with prostate cancer from families with a BRCA1 mutation. The median survival from diagnosis was 4.0 years for men with a BRCA2 mutation vs 8.0 years for men with a BRCA1 mutation, and the difference was highly significant (Po0.01). It may be important to develop targeted chemotherapies to treat prostate cancer in men with a BRCA2 mutation. British Journal of Cancer (2008) BRCA2 is a multisite cancer gene. It is generally thought that BRCA2 mutations primarily affect women, but men with mutations are also at elevated cancer risk. The two most important cancer sites for males who carry a mutation are the prostate and the pancreas (Liede et al, 2004). The risk of prostate cancer is elevated approximately fivefold in BRCA2 carriers, compared to noncarriers. Genetic counselors and urologists advise men with BRCA2 mutations to undergo surveillance with annual PSA testing from the age of 40 years -a recommendation based on the perceived effectiveness of prostate screening. It is hoped that screening leads to early diagnosis, when cure rates are high. A recent study from Iceland suggests that prostate cancers in men with a BRCA2 mutation may be unusually aggressive (Tryggvadottir et al, 2007). Tryggvadottir et al (2007) identified the Icelandic founder mutation (BRCA2 999 del5) in 30 of the 527 prostate cancer patients studied (5.7%). Men with a BRCA2 mutation had a median survival of only 2.1 years, compared with 12.4 years for noncarriers (Po0.01). The survival difference could not be explained by stage or grade. It is important that these findings be replicated because of the implications for the screening of men with a BRCA2 mutation. We identified the prostate cancer patients in a panel of 2673 families with a BRCA1 or a BRCA2 mutation and estimated survival of the men in the two subgroups. METHODSMen with prostate cancer were included in the survival analysis if they were from a family with a BRCA mutation and if they were (a) known to carry the familial BRCA mutation, or (b) if they were a first-degree relative of a known carrier, or (c) if they were a firstdegree relative of a woman diagnosed with breast or ovarian cancer. For each eligible man with prostate cancer, information was collected on age at diagnosis, age at death (if deceased) or age when last known alive (if alive). Information was collected by the

The purpose of this report is to estimate the proportions of familial and hereditary breast cancers among unselected cases of breast cancer in Vietnam. Two hundred and ninety-two unselected cases of incident breast cancer were recruited from the National Cancer Hospital, Hanoi, the largest cancer centre in Vietnam. Family histories were collected for 292 cases and a DNA sample was obtained for 259 cases. DNA samples were screened for mutations in the large exons of BRCA1 and BRCA2 using the protein truncation test and by allele-specific testing for 17 founder mutations which have been reported in other Asian populations. Complete gene sequencing was performed on two cases of familial breast cancer. Seven of 292 cases reported a relative with breast cancer and one patient reported a relative with ovarian cancer. A pathogenic BRCA mutation was detected in 2 of 259 cases; one BRCA1 carrier was diagnosed at age 51 and one BRCA2 carrier was diagnosed at age 42. Neither case reported a relative with breast or ovarian cancer. A family history of breast cancer is very uncommon among Vietnamese breast cancer patients. The frequency of pathogenic BRCA mutations in Vietnamese breast cancer patients is among the lowest reported worldwide.