Risk of prostate cancer is not associated with levels of C‐reactive protein and other commonly used markers of inflammation

Abstract

Most population-based studies studied the association between inflammation and prostate cancer (PCa) by assessing C-reactive protein (CRP). As these findings have shown inconsistent results, we aimed to also study different markers that have been commonly taken as indications of inflammation. A cohort based on four groups of men (n 5 34,891), according to age at cohort entry (45, 55, 65 and 75 years), with measurements of glucose, triglycerides, total cholesterol, haptoglobin, albumin, hemoglobin and leukocytes were selected from the Apolipoprotein Mortality Risk database. A total of 17,937 men had measurements of non-high-sensitive CRP. Multivariate Cox proportional hazard models were used to analyze associations between inflammatory markers and PCa. A total of 49 of 12,063 men developed PCa in the age 45 group, whereas 207 of 9,940, 472 of 8,266 and 276 of 3,618 were diagnosed in the age 55, 65 and 75 groups, respectively. Mean follow-up time was 7.5 years (SD: 3.9). No markers showed an association with PCa risk, nor was there a trend by quartiles or an indication for different PCa risks by strata of hypercholesterolemia, hyperglycemia and hypertriglyceridemia status. The studied markers were not found to be associated with PCa risk. These null findings might be due to methodological issues; however, it is unlikely that strong and long-lasting associations between inflammation and PCa risk were missed as this was a large database with long follow-up. This indicates need for international consensus on appropriate inflammatory markers in the context of cancer that may be practically applied in large studies.

Association of the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio and prostate cancer detection rates in patients via contemporary multi-core prostate biopsy

“…In a Swedish cohort, 44% increased prostate cancer risk was reported when leukocyte counts were elevated in relatively young men, and 60% increased prostate cancer risk was reported in a cohort in Finland 1526. Similar to our results, in studies with large numbers of participants, a higher NLR led to 37.2% increase in the risk of prostate cancer compared with a low NLR.…”

Serum inflammatory markers and colorectal cancer risk and survival

“…The majority of participants had undetectable CRP levels, which hampered our analysis using continuous CRP. Therefore, similar to the previous study, we assessed CRP in categories (Van Hemelrijck et al , 2011). Participants with measurements of serum inflammatory markers taken within 2 years before colorectal cancer diagnosis were excluded to reduce the possibility of reverse causation.…”

“…The population in the study was selected by the analysis of fresh blood samples from non-hospitalised individuals. However, any healthy cohort effect would not have an effect on the internal validity of the study (Van Hemelrijck et al , 2011). …”

Low levels of apolipoprotein A-I and HDL are associated with risk of prostate cancer in the Swedish AMORIS study

“…However, from another analysis that we conducted in the AMORIS study we know that the association between inflammation and risk of PCa is likely to be weak. In a cohort of 34,891 men, we studied the association between albumin, haptoglobin, hemoglobin, leukocytes, C-reactive protein, and risk of PCa (while stratifying for hyperglycemia, hypertriglyceridemia, or hypercholesterolemia status) and did not find any association [38]. It was not possible to study the effect of insulin levels on the associations between lipid components and PCa risk, but since stratification by glucose levels did not show different results it is unlikely that insulin is a strong confounder.…”