Abstract
In the last decades, prostate cancer has become a relevant problem to Brazilian health area, as neoplasia has been a recurrent disease among men. One suspects that several factors, among which age, race, hereditariness, hormonal levels and environmental influence, contribute to the disease occurrence. There is a great interest concerning the role of other hereditary polymorphisms in the development of prostate cancer. This bibliographical review points out information about prostate cancer to specialists in health and biological sciences, as well as to the general population, and it remarks: the potential link between the disease and hereditariness and riskis.