BACKGROUND: Both prostate cancer and androgenetic alopecia (AA) are strongly age related conditions that are considered to be androgen dependent, but studies of the relationship between them have yielded inconsistent results.
We aimed to assess whether AA at ages 20 and 40 are associated with risk of prostate cancer.
METHODS: At a follow up of the Melbourne Collaborative Cohort Study men were asked to assess their hair pattern at ages 20 and 40 relative to eight categories in showcards. Cases were men notified to the Victorian Cancer Registry with prostate cancer diagnosed between cohort enrolment (1990-1994) and follow-up attendance (2003-2009). Flexible parametric survival models were used to estimate age varying hazard ratios and predicted cumulative probabilities of prostate cancer by AA categories.
RESULTS: Of 9,448 men that attended follow-up and provided data on AA we identified 476 prostate cancer cases during a median follow up of 11 years 4 months. Cumulative probability of prostate cancer was greater at all ages up to 76 years for men with vertex versus no AA at age 40. At age 76 the estimated probabilities converged to 0.15. Vertex AA at 40 was also associated with younger age of diagnosis for prostate cancer cases.
CONCLUSIONS: Vertex AA at age 40 might be a marker of increased risk of early onset prostate cancer.
IMPACT: If confirmed, these results suggest that the apparently conflicting findings of previous studies might be explained by failure to adequately model the age-varying nature of the association between AA and prostate cancer.
Written by:
Muller DC, Giles GG, Sinclair R, Hopper JL, English DR, Severi G. Are you the author?
Cancer Epidemiology Centre, Cancer Council Victoria.
Reference: Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2012 Oct 16. Epub ahead of print.
doi: 10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-12-0860
PubMed Abstract
PMID: 23074289
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