Association between dihydrotestosterone and long-term risk for prostate cancer mortality: A prospective cohort study

The androgen metabolism plays an important role in the progression of prostate cancer. Contradictory to what one might assume given the androgenic potency of dihydrotestosterone (DHT) there are indications that high DHT levels protect from prostate cancer. We want to determine whether there is a long-term association between baseline levels of DHT and death from prostate cancer.

During the years 1988 and 1989, 1782 men out of 2400 invited were screened for prostate cancer. The invited men were randomly selected from a background population of more than 27 000 men. Serum levels of DHT were analyzed for all 65 men diagnosed in the trial and 130 controls from the same cohort without any signs of prostate cancer. In this study we evaluate outcomes for the whole cohort (n = 195), the men without clinical signs of prostate cancer at beginning of follow up (n = 130) and men with screening detected cancer (n = 65). The cohort was followed up after 30 years and data from the Swedish Cause of Death Registry and the Swedish Cancer Registry were extracted. Hazard ratios (HRs) were calculated using Cox regression models.

High DHT levels were positively correlated to a lower risk for prostate cancer death in the entire cohort: HR = 0.44 (0.25-0.77 95% confidence interval [CI]). The positive correlation remained significant for the subgroup analysis. HR for the men enrolled in the study without any clinical signs of prostate cancer was 0.25 (0.07-0.88 95% CI) and for the men with a prostate cancer diagnosis at time of inclusion: HR = 0.50 (0.26-0.94 95% CI).

DHT is negatively associated with long-term prostate cancer death regardless of clinical presentation at time of inclusion.