Baldness Linked To Higher Risk Of Prostate Cancer

Date: Mar-27-2013Early baldness is significantly linked to an increased risk of prostate cancer in African-American men.

This includes diagnosis of more advanced and aggressive disease and diagnosis at an earlier age, according to new research published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

The study found that African-American males who experienced baldness were 69% more likely to develop prostate cancer than those who were not balding.

The probability of high-stage and high-grade prostate cancer increased more than two-fold with frontal baldness, which was over 6 times as common in males affected by the disease before 60 years of age.

The researchers, led by Charnita Zeigler-Johnson, PhD, of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, were surprised to find that smoking and a particular androgen-metabolism genotype appeared to protect against prostate cancer for subgroups of African-Americans.

The experts said:

"The mechanistic relationship between baldness, genotypes, smoking, and prostate cancer etiology/severity is not yet well defined ... our findings support the need to study these interactions and their effects on the underlying hormones that impact prostate cancer risk."

Prior research has examined a possible association between baldness and prostate cancer, which are both linked to androgen metabolism, with a focus on the genes involved, although results were conflicting.

Few studies have centered on associations between baldness, prostate cancer, and androgen metabolism genotypes in African-American men.

Therefore, the investigators conducted a case-control study to examine those links, including polymorphic variations in androgen metabolism genes as a way of evaluating baldness' link to prostate cancer by genotype.

The research involved 318 African-American prostate cancer patients with baldness (aged 39 to 86) and 219 African-American males without the disease (control group, aged 33 to 93).
All of the subjects had participated in the Study of Clinical Outcomes, Risk, and Ethnicity (SCORE), which took place from 1998 to 2010 in Philadelphia.

The Hamilton-Norwood Hair Baldness Patterns Scale was used to identify each volunteers' baldness status. The statuses included:
stages I and II - none
stages IIa to IVa - frontal baldness
stages III-vertex to VII - any vertex baldness

Results showed that those in the control group were less likely to have a family history of prostate cancer and less likely to be balding.

Frontal baldness was linked to high-stage prostate cancer and high-grade prostate cancer, while vertex balding was linked to low-grade prostate cancer.

Baldness was associated with high-stage and high-grade cancer in men younger than 60. Frontal baldness increased the risk of high-stage prostate cancer and high-grade disease, however, the same relationship was not found for men 60 years or older.

An inverse association was seen between CYP3A43*3 and prostate cancer. Androgen-metabolism genotyping data revealed that no other genotype was notably linked to the disease.

Three factors were considerably linked to the cancer in men who were not balding:
family history of the disease
history of smoking
CYP3A43*3 genotype

Men who were diagnosed with the cancer before age 60 had a notably higher likelihood of having prostate-specific antigen (PSA) values ≥10 ng/mL at diagnosis if they had any baldness. Frontal baldness increased the likelihood.

"Both ever-smoking and the CYP3A43*3 genotype in particular showed protective effects with prostate cancer in young men with no balding at the age of 30 years," the team said.

The results indicate that the risk of disease for hormonally driven cancers may be reduced with hypoandrogenism, mediated by the combination of smoking and the expression of CYP3A43*3.

However, the scientists are not sure what mechanisms are responsible for this protection or whether the mechanism for CYP3A43 and smoking is related.

The researchers concluded:

"We were surprised to find an association that others had not reported with smoking. Little is known about the interplay of these variables and how they may jointly contribute to prostate cancer risk. Future studies may also take a more thorough look at exposure to smoking."

A previous study showed that a drug used to treat baldness, finasteride, cuts the risk of developing prostate cancer by 25%.

Written by Sarah Glynn

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