8 April 2013 Last updated at 20:31 ET By Michelle Roberts Health editor, BBC News online

Men with prostate cancer and an inherited gene mutation have the worst form of the disease, research reveals.

The BRCA2 gene is linked to hereditary breast cancer, as well as prostate and ovarian cancer.

Now scientists say that as well as being more likely to get prostate cancer, men with BRCA2 are also more likely to develop aggressive tumours and have the poorest survival rates.

They say these men should be treated quickly to save lives.

This study shows that doctors need to consider treating men with prostate cancer and a faulty BRCA2 gene much sooner than they currently do, rather than waiting to see how the disease develops

Around one in every 100 men with prostate cancer will have the BRCA2 mutation.

These men might benefit from immediate surgery or radiotherapy, even if their disease is at an early stage and would normally be classified as low risk, according to the latest work in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Prostate cancer can grow extremely slowly or very quickly, and this is something that is hard to predict early on.

Some men may live symptom-free for a lifetime, despite having this cancer.

Read more from the original source:
'Deadly' prostate cancer gene find

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