according to a new study that drew subjects aged 40-54 years from three public and two private hospitals in the Chicago area.
Black race, rather than socioeconomic or clinical factors, appeared to be the strongest nonmodifiable predictor of prostate cancer risk in that age group, the researchers concluded, based on multivariate analyses that examined the association between prostate cancer risk and clinical setting, race, genetically determined West African ancestry, and clinical and socioeconomic risk factors.
Dr. Oluwarotimi S. Nettey
The results suggest that screening practices should be altered, said study investigator Oluwarotimi S. Nettey, MD, of Northwestern University, Chicago. “You might want to think about screening black men who are younger than 55.”
“In the prebiopsy space, most studies have looked at race, age, PSA [level], and prostate volume, and they’ve said that the reason we see that black men have disparate prostate cancer risk on diagnosis is probably because of access to care issues, so that’s been the confounder. We tried to control for this by looking at socioeconomic status through income, marriage, and education, as well as hospital setting,” said Dr. Nettey, who presented the study at a poster session at the annual meeting of the American Urological Association.
Previous studies have examined populations and then conducted a secondary analysis on outcomes in black men. The current study has greater power and is more convincing because outcomes in black men was the primary outcome of the study, according to Robert L. Waterhouse Jr., MD, who is the public policy liaison for the R. Frank Jones Urological Society of the National Medical Association. Dr. Waterhouse, a urologist in Charlotte, N.C., attended the poster session and was not involved in the research.
“This study helps to provide some evidence that black heritage is indeed a significant risk factor in men who develop prostate cancer at an earlier age, and efforts at identifying prostate cancer at an earlier age [should consider] black race as a high-risk group,” said Dr. Waterhouse.