Systems and methods for mitigating prostate cancer development are provided. Peripheral blood cells may be evaluated for the presence or quantity of gamma-H2AX foci, and/or for gene alterations encoding a protein with impaired or lack of function, for example, because the encoded protein is truncated, and correlating with prostate cancer development. Such nucleic acids may encode proteins from or peripheral to the DNA damage repair pathway and/or androgen receptor signaling pathway, or that are otherwise correlated with prostate cancer development. Such genes include one or more of AKR1C1, PALB2, APTX, BLM, BRCA1, CTBP1, DDB2, FANCA, FANCL, MBD5, MSH3, NEIL3, RAD51D, RAD54L2, SP1, TP53BP1, UBE2D3, UBE2V2, NRIP1, EFCAB6, CRISP3, PAPSS2, ATP6V0A2, ALG13, MGAT2, B3GAT3, DOLK, FLT3, ASXL1, KDR, or NOTCH2.