Serum dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate concentration and thyroid cancer risk: a matched case control study

In animal models of carcinogenesis, pharmacological doses of dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) treatment appear to reduce the incidence of chemically induced thyroid cancers. DHEA and its sulfate (DHEA-S) are secreted in approximately equal amounts, but serum levels of DHEA-S are 300-500 times higher and have no diurnal variation when compared to DHEA. The hypothesis that serum concentrations of DHEA-S may be associated with thyroid cancer risk was tested in a population-based prospective case control study. Data from the practically complete nationwide Cancer Registry of Norway were linked to the data file of a serum bank comprising blood samples from 300,000 Norwegian men and women obtained through national health surveys. A total of 113 donors, who during the years after blood sampling received a diagnosis of thyroid cancer, were identified in the serum bank and were eligible for the study. Each case was matched with 3 controls. Serum levels of DHEA-S were determined blindly. Controls were divided into tertiles, and odds ratios between cases and controls were determined relative to the group with the lowest serum DHEA-S level. The risk of developing thyroid cancer was determined in women 50 years of age or older, in women below age 50, in men, and in the subgroup of 77 cases who had morphologically verified papillary thyroid cancer. No significant association between prediagnostic serum DHEA-S concentrations and thyroid cancer risk was observed. These data indicate that DHEA-S within physiological concentrations does not reduce the risk of thyroid cancer.