The Rate Elements Skewing Outcomes Linked to Veteran Equity in PCa (RESOLVE PCa) Consortium: Multilevel Modeling to Predict Prostate Cancer Incidence and Aggressiveness

Principal Investigators: Isla Garraway, MD, PhD (University of California, Los Angeles; Greater Los Angeles VA Healthcare System), Kara Maxwell, MD, PhD (University of Pennsylvania),Corporal Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center), Kosj Yamoah, MD, PhD (Moffit Cancer Center), Timothy Rebbeck, PhD (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute; Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health), Brent Rose, MD (University of California, San Diego)

Co-Investigators: Daniel Lee, MD, MS (University of Pennsylvania), Nicholas Nickols, MD, PhD (University of California, Los Angeles), Michael Lewis, MD (Greater Los Angeles VA Healthcare System), Matthew Rettig, MD (University of California, Los Angeles), Saiju Pyarajan, PhD (Brigham and Women’s Hospital)

Description:

• Racial disparities in prostate cancer pose a significant public health problem. Understanding the complex factors that contribute to disparities is critical for solving them and improving the lives of patients with prostate cancer.
• In a study in over 70,000 patients with prostate cancer, Dr. Isla Garraway and colleagues found that despite similar screening, self-identified Black/African American patients had a significantly higher incidence of localized and metastatic prostate cancer compared to White/European American patients.
• The team is leveraging a mega-dataset of clinical, demographic, survey and genetic data from over 500,000 Veterans.
• In this project, the team will apply complex modeling approaches to parse out the genetic (polygenic risk score, rare variant alterations, ancestral markers) and non-genetic (self-identified race/ethnicity, social determinants of health, socioeconomic status, and environmental exposures) factors that contribute to disparities in prostate cancer incidence, aggressiveness, and outcomes.
• If successful, this project willdevelop a multi-level prostate cancer risk prediction model and create improved prostate cancer screening and treatment paradigms. 

What this means to patients:  Understanding the factors that contribute to prostate cancer disparities is a critical unmet medical need.  Dr. Garraway and colleagues will use a vast dataset with clinical, demographic, and genetic data from over 500,000 Veterans, to identify social and environmental vs. genomic/genetic factors that contribute to prostate cancer racial disparities and develop models for predicting risk and improving tailored patient screening and management strategies.