Previous studies have shown a decreased risk of prostate cancer for childless men but the cause of the association remains to be elucidated.
The aim of this study was to assess risk of prostate cancer by fatherhood status, also considering potential confounding factors. In a case-control study in Prostate Cancer data Base Sweden (PCBaSe) 2.0, a nationwide, population-based cohort, data on number of children, marital status, education, comorbidity, and tumor characteristics obtained through nationwide health care registers and demographic databases for 117 328 prostate cancer cases and 562 644 controls, matched on birth year and county of residence, were analyzed. Conditional logistic regression was used to estimate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) for prostate cancer overall and by risk category, adjusting for marital status and education. Childless men had a decreased risk of prostate cancer compared to fathers; OR 0.83 (95% CI 0.82-0.84) and risk was lower for low-risk prostate cancer, OR 0.74 (95% CI 0.72-0.77) than for metastatic prostate cancer, OR 0.93 (95% CI 0.90-0.97). Adjustment for marital status and education attenuated the association in the low-risk category, adjusted OR 0.87 (95% CI 0.84-0.91), while OR for metastatic cancer remained virtually unchanged, adjusted OR 0.92 (95% CI 0.88-0.96). Our data indicate that the association between fatherhood status and prostate cancer to a large part is due to socioeconomic factors influencing health-care seeking behavior including testing of prostate specific antigen levels.
Written by:
Wirén SM, Drevin LI, Carlsson SV, Akre O, Holmberg EC, Robinson DE, Garmo HG, Stattin PE. Are you the author?
Department of Surgery and Perioperative Sciences, Urology and Andrology, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden.
Reference: Int J Cancer. 2013 Jan 25. Epub ahead of print.
doi: 10.1002/ijc.28057
PubMed Abstract
PMID: 23354735
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