Description: FRIDAY, Nov. 2 (HealthDay News) -- A variant of a gene that doubles the risk of prostate cancer in black men has been identified, and researchers say the discovery could lead to new treatments.

Almost twice as many black men develop prostate cancer as white men, researchers report. This study confirms that common genetic variants are linked to increased risk for prostate cancer. One of these variants, on the 8q24 gene, confers a particularly significant risk to black men.

"We found a gene involved in increased risk for prostate cancer in African-Americans," said lead researcher Rick Kittles, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Chicago. "This gene is involved in DNA repair."

In the study, Kittles' team looked at the 8q24 region of chromosome 8 and compared genotypes of 490 black men with prostate cancer to 567 controls.

Their report was published in the Oct. 31 online edition of Genome Research.

Finding these variants enables researchers to find out ho