Association of neighborhood gentrification with prostate cancer and immune markers in African American and European American men.

Prior studies showed that neighborhood deprivation increases the risk of lethal prostate cancer. However, the role of neighborhood gentrification in prostate cancer development and outcome remains poorly understood. We examined the relationships of gentrification with prostate cancer and serum proteome-defined inflammation and immune function in a diverse cohort.

The case-control study included 769 cases [405 African American (AA), 364 European American (EA) men] and 1023 controls (479 AA and 544 EA), with 219 all-cause and 59 prostate cancer-specific deaths among cases. Geocodes were linked to a neighborhood gentrification index (NGI) derived from US Census data. Cox and logistic regression, and MANOVA, were used to determine associations between NGI, as continuous or quintiles (Q), and outcomes.

Adjusting for individual socioeconomic status (SES), continuous NGI was positively associated with prostate cancer among all men (odds ratio [OR] 1.07, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.01-1.14). AA and low-income men experienced the highest odds of prostate cancer when residing in tracts with moderate gentrification, whereas EA men experienced reduced odds of regional/metastatic cancer with increased gentrification in SES-adjusted analyses. Continuous NGI also associated with mortality among men presenting with localized disease and low-income men in SES-adjusted Cox regression analyses. NGI was not associated with serum proteome-defined chemotaxis, inflammation, and tumor immunity suppression.

Findings show that neighborhood gentrification associates with prostate cancer and mortality in this diverse population albeit associations were heterogenous within subgroups. The observations suggest that changing neighborhood socioeconomic environments may affect prostate cancer risk and outcome, likely through multifactorial mechanisms.

Cancer medicine. 2023 Dec 27 [Epub ahead of print]

Catherine M Pichardo, Adaora Ezeani, Margaret S Pichardo, Tanya Agurs-Collins, Tiffany M Powell-Wiley, Brid Ryan, Tsion Zewdu Minas, Maeve Bailey-Whyte, Wei Tang, Tiffany H Dorsey, William Wooten, Christopher A Loffredo, Stefan Ambs

Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, NCI, NIH, Rockville, Maryland, USA., Department of Surgery, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Penn Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA., Social Determinants of Obesity and Cardiovascular Risk Laboratory, Cardiovascular Branch, Division of Intramural Research, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA., Laboratory of Human Carcinogenesis, National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, Maryland, USA., University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center Biostatistics Shared Service, Baltimore, Maryland, USA., Cancer Prevention and Control Program, Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, District of Columbia, USA.