Chief scientific officer of deCODE, Jeff Gulcher (48) takes a deCODEme scan that indicates he has a very high risk bracket for prostate cancer. Taking his results to a urologist may have saved his life.

Rick Weiss of the Washington Post reports:

Jeffrey Gulcher had no reason to think much about prostate cancer. He was just 48, and the disease typically strikes later in life. Even the most cautious medical groups agree that most men need not begin annual prostate screenings until age 50.

But Gulcher happens to be the chief scientific officer of deCODE Genetics — one of several companies that, amid some controversy, have begun offering direct-to-consumer DNA tests that can help people predict which diseases they are likely to get. So in April, he spat into a test tube and, without giving the matter much thought, sent the sample in for analysis by his own company.

He was in for a shock.

The test indicated that he carries a genetic variant that nearly doubles his lifetime risk of getting prostate cancer: While the average man has a 15 percent chance of being stricken, Gulcher had a 30 percent shot. That spurred his physician to order a standard blood test for prostate cancer. The result was toward the high end of the range considered normal, which, together with the DNA test, worried the doctor. He referred Gulcher to a urologist, who performed an exploratory biopsy — and found that Gulcher’s prostate gland was riddled with cancer, and a fairly aggressive version of it at that.

Gulcher is going in for surgery tomorrow, and not a moment too soon. Tests suggest that the disease has not yet spread to other parts of his body, a milestone that often portends death and that may well have been passed had he waited until he turned 50 to get a standard prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test.

Did genetic testing save Gulcher’s life? I think it may have. His dramatic story seems to illustrate perfectly the claims, made by his company and others, that an open market of DNA tests is the 21st century’s ticket to a healthier nation.

Link: Read the full article in the Washington Post.