Local atherosclerotic lesions increase prostate cancer risk

Men with local atherosclerotic lesions are at increased risk of developing prostate cancer, study findings suggest.

Co-author Martina Hager (Paracelsus Medical University Salzburg, Austria) and team report that local atherosclerosis was more pronounced in 50 prostate cancer-positive specimens than in 29 negative specimens.

Hager et al explain in the journal BJU International that they conducted their study because "positive correlations between coronary arterial atherosclerosis and prostate cancer, and common pathogenetic features, eg, oxidative stress, sex hormones, dietary fat, and inflammation, have been reported."

The researchers obtained specimens from the Medical University of Innsbruck in Austria. The positive specimens came from patients with a mean age of 56 years. Twenty-six of the negative specimens came from men with a mean age of 60 years, and the other three specimens came from the normal prostatic tissue of men aged a mean of 29 years.

Hager and colleagues micromorphometrically evaluated a mean of seven arteries in each specimen, and calculated the intima-to-media ratio (IMR) as a measure of the severity of intimal thickening.

Arteries from positive specimens had a median IMR of 0.74, compared with 0.44 for others. Also, 33% of arteries from positive specimens had an IMR of more than 1, compared with only 18% for other arteries.

Hager and co-workers report that an IMR of more than 1 was associated with an odds ratio for prostate cancer of 2.3.

The researchers conclude: "These findings are consistent with previous reports of a positive association between coronary artery disease and prostate cancer, but conflict with reports refuting an association of atherosclerosis to prostate cancer. However, no previous study has investigated atherosclerosis in the prostatic arteries."