A Prospective Investigation of Height and Prostate Cancer Risk

Abstract

Greater adult height, which reflects a combination of early nutrition, exposure to androgens, growth hormones, and other factors during growth and development, as well as heredity, has been associated with increased prostate cancer risk in several observational studies, but findings have been inconsistent. We examined this relationship in the AlphaTocopherol, Beta-Carotene Cancer Prevention Study cohort. At baseline, 29,119 Finnish male smokers 50 to 69 years old had height and weight measured by trained personnel, provided information on demographic, smoking, medical, and other characteristics, and completed an extensive diet history questionnaire. A total of 1,346 incident prostate cancer cases were identified during a follow-up period of up to 17.4 years (median, 14.1 years). In age-adjusted Cox proportional hazards models, the hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals for prostate cancer according to increasing quintiles of height [V168, 169-171, 172-175, 176-178, and >178 cm] were 1.00 (reference), 1.11 (0.93-1.32), 1.11 (0.95-1.31), 1.30 (1.01-1.55), and 1.14 (0.96-1.35); P trend = 0.04. In analyses stratified by disease stage (available for 916 cases), a strong dose-response relationship was observed between greater height and advanced, but not earlier-stage, disease [tumornode-metastasis stage III-IV, hazard ratio and 95% confidence interval for increasing quintiles of height: 1.77 (1.18-2.65), 1.82 (1.25-2.65), 1.93 (1.29-2.90), and 2.02 (1.37-2.97); P trend = 0.0008, P interaction = 0.002]. Our study provides additional evidence that increased height is a risk factor for prostate cancer and suggests that taller men are particularly susceptible to advanced disease. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2006;15(11):2174 -8)

Body size and risk of prostate cancer in Jamaican men

“…These findings are in agreement with cohort studies [35,36] and other case-control studies [37][38][39] but are in contrast to other studies [40][41][42][43][44] in which increased risk of disease among taller men is suggested. A meta-analysis of cohort and case-control studies suggested a weak positive association with prostate cancer.…”

Medical history, body size, and cigarette smoking in relation to fatal prostate cancer

“…Four studies analyzing five cohorts [7,51,52,58] reported a positive association between fatal prostate cancer and height, with RRs ranging from 1.1 to 2.6 for comparison of the highest to the lowest category. These results are consistent with ours, although the confidence intervals around our risk estimates were wide.…”

Height and risk of prostate cancer in the prostate, lung, colorectal, and ovarian cancer screening trial

“…More than 30 prospective and 27 case -control studies have examined height and overall prostate cancer risk (Macinnis and English, 2006;Zuccolo et al, 2008), but findings are mixed; some studies showed a positive association (Le Marchand et al, 1994;Andersson et al, 1997;Giovannucci et al, 1997;Hebert et al, 1997;Rodriguez et al, 2001;Engeland et al, 2003;Cox et al, 2006;Sequoia et al, 2006;Zuccolo et al, 2008), whereas others found no relation (Severson et al, 1988;Cerhan et al, 1997;Veierod et al, 1997;Nilsen and Vatten, 1999;Clarke and Whittemore, 2000;Pischon et al, 2008). Stronger associations were observed for more advanced or fatal prostate cancer among 7 (Andersson et al, 1997;Giovannucci et al, 1997Giovannucci et al, , 2004Rodriguez et al, 2001;Cox et al, 2006;Sequoia et al, 2006;Zuccolo et al, 2008) of the 14 (Le Marchand et al, 1994;Andersson et al, 1997;Giovannucci et al, 1997Giovannucci et al, , 2004Nilsen and Vatten, 1999;Habel et al, 2000;Hsing et al, 2000;Norrish et al, 2000;Rodriguez et al, 2001;Macinnis et al, 2003;Cox et al, 2006;Sequoia et al, 2006;Pischon et al, 2008;Zuccolo et al, 2008) studies ...…”