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Male infertility and prostate cancer risk: a nested case–control study

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Abstract

The pathogenesis of prostate cancer is unclear, although experimental evidence implicates androgens as playing an important role. Infertile men frequently suffer from some degree of hypogonadism and may hence be hypothesized to be at lower risk of developing prostate cancer than fertile men. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a case–control study nested within “the Malmö Diet and Cancer Study” cohort in Sweden, inviting 661 prostate cancer cases and 661 age-matched controls to participate. Of the 975 (74%) respondents, we excluded 84 childless men with unknown fertility status. Thus, 891 men were included, providing 445 prostate cancer cases and 446 controls. Of these, 841 (94%) men were biological fathers and 50 (6%) men were infertile. Logistic regression showed that the infertile men were at significantly lower risk of being diagnosed with prostate cancer than the fertile men (odds ratio, 0.45; 95% confidence interval, 0.25–0.83). Conditional and unconditional multivariate models, adjusting for socioeconomic, anthropometric, and health-status-related factors, provided similar estimates. We conclude that enduring male infertility is associated with a reduced prostate cancer risk, thus corroborating the theory that normal testicular function, and hence most probably sufficient steroidogenesis, is an important contributing factor to the later development of this malignancy.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Drs. Peter Wallström and Anders Dahlin for their assistance in data collection. The Swedish Research Council (K2009-54X-21116-01-3, K2005-72X-14545-03A, K2008-66X-20760-01-3, and K2007-69X-20487-01-3); the Swedish Cancer Society (07 0139, 07 0085, 2008/520, 4857-B05-03XCC, 4294, and 4292); the Malmö University Hospital Cancer Research Fund; the Gunnar Nilsson Cancer Fund; the Ernhold Lundström Foundation; the Einar and Inga Nilsson Foundation; the Crafoord Foundation; the Mossfelt Foundation.

Conflict of interest statement

None of the authors have any financial interests, affiliations, or relationships that are relevant to any part of the present study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Urology, Malmö University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden

    Yasir Ruhayel, David Ulmert & Anders Bjartell

  2. Molecular and Genetic Reproductive Research Group, Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

    Yasir Ruhayel, Aleksander Giwercman, Lars Rylander & Yvonne L. Giwercman

  3. Reproductive Medicine Centre, Malmö University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden

    Aleksander Giwercman

  4. Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

    Lars Rylander

  5. Department of Surgery, Malmö University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden

    Jonas Manjer

  6. Department of Internal Medicine, Malmö University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden

    Göran Berglund

  7. CRC, Building 91, Plan 10, Entrance 72, UMAS, 205 02, Malmö, Sweden

    Yasir Ruhayel

Authors
  1. Yasir Ruhayel
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  2. Aleksander Giwercman
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  3. David Ulmert
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  4. Lars Rylander
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  5. Anders Bjartell
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  6. Jonas Manjer
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  7. Göran Berglund
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  8. Yvonne L. Giwercman
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yasir Ruhayel.

Additional information

This study was conducted at Molecular and Genetic Reproductive Research Group, Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.

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Ruhayel, Y., Giwercman, A., Ulmert, D. et al. Male infertility and prostate cancer risk: a nested case–control study. Cancer Causes Control 21, 1635–1643 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-010-9592-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-010-9592-8

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