PURPOSE: A randomized placebo-controlled clinical trial of folic acid supplementation for the chemoprevention of colorectal adenomas revealed an increased incidence of prostate cancer in the treatment group.
Limited data exist on post-diagnostic folate/folic acid intake and risk of prostate cancer progression. We prospectively examined the association between post-diagnostic consumption of folate and the risk of prostate cancer recurrence following radical prostatectomy (RP), external beam radiation therapy (EBRT), and brachytherapy (BT).
METHODS: This study was conducted among 1153 men treated with RP, EBRT, and BT with clinical stage T1-T2c prostate adenocarcinoma who participated in the Diet and Lifestyle sub-study of CaPSURE™ by completing a semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) in 2004-2005. We utilized Cox proportional hazards regression to analyze the association between folate intake and prostate cancer progression.
RESULTS: Overall, prostate cancer progression occurred in 101 (8.76%) men over a mean follow-up of 34 months. After multivariate adjustment, we observed no evidence of an association between intake of total folate, dietary folate, or dietary folate equivalents and prostate cancer recurrence. In a secondary analysis by treatment, patients in the lowest decile of dietary folate intake had a 2.6-fold increase in risk of recurrence (HR: 2.56; 95% CI: 1.23,5.29; p=0.01) following RP. In patients treated with EBRT and BT, we observed no evidence of an association between prostate cancer progression and increased intake of folate.
CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that the consumption of folate-containing foods and multivitamins is not associated with prostate cancer progression following definitive treatment.
Written by:
Tomaszewski JJ, Richman EL, Sadetsky N, O'Keefe DS, Carroll PR, Davies BJ, Chan JM. Are you the author?
Division of Urologic Oncology, Department of Surgical Oncology, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
Reference: J Urol. 2013 Oct 3. pii: S0022-5347(13)05564-X.
doi: 10.1016/j.juro.2013.09.065
PubMed Abstract
PMID: 24095905
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