A case-control study of prostatic cancer in Kyoto, Japan: sexual risk factors

A case-control study on prostatic cancer was conducted in Kyoto, Japan, from 1981-1984, including 100 patients with prostatic cancer (PC) and age, hospital, and date-of-admission matched controls of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) patients and general hospital patients. Analysis of several sexual factors obtained through a self-administered questionnaire revealed the following observations: 1) cancer patients had fewer sex partners before marriage (relative risk, RR = 0.35; 95% confidence interval: 0.13-0.93) than the hospital controls; 2) they had more vigorous sexual activities in the third (RR = 2.89; 1.01-8.28) and fourth decades of life (RR = 2.26: 1.03-4.95) than hospital controls, but no significantly different sexual activities from controls in other decades; 3) they had less frequent orgasms (RR = 2.55; 1.11-5.83) than BPH controls or (RR = 4.96: 1.78-13.9) hospital controls, and sexual intercourse appeared to be less satisfactory (RR = 2.08: 1.05-4.13) than that of hospital controls; and 4) they had less frequent episodes of sexually transmitted diseases (RR = 0.36: 0.16-0.83) than BPH controls. Marital status, fertility, ejaculation, masturbation, nocturnal emission, contraceptive use, and wife's episodes of sexually transmitted disease were not linked to prostatic cancer risk.