Abstract PO-187: Atopic allergic conditions and prostate cancer risk in the Multiethnic Cohort Study
Authors: Wang Anqi , Wan Peggy , Marchand Loic Le , Wilkens Lynne R , Haiman Christopher A. 
Published: January 2022

Previous evidence of the impact of atopic allergic conditions (AACs, such as asthma, hay fever, and allergies) – a highly reactive immune state, on prostate cancer risk has been inconclusive, and few studies have focused on diverse racial and ethnic populations. To examine the association between AACs and AAC medication use with prostate cancer risk, we evaluated 74,598 men aged 45 years and older at baseline from Hawaii and California in the Multiethnic Cohort (MEC) Study (26% White, 13% African-American, 7% Native Hawaiian, 31% Japanese American, and 23% Latino). Prostate cancer cases and deaths were identified by linkage to the SEER cancer registries and death certificate files, supplemented by National Death Index. AACs status and AACs medication use and duration were obtained from a self-reported baseline questionnaire. We used Cox proportional hazard regression to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs), using age as the time metric. We adjusted for year at cohort entry, education, race/ethnicity, BMI, diabetes history, family history of prostate cancer, and aspirin and/or statin use in all analyses. The median follow-up through 2017 was 21.5 years, and a total of 8,696 incident prostate cancer cases, and 1,171 prostate cancer deaths occurred. Twenty-one percent of men reported any history of diagnosed AACs, with the highest prevalence reported in Whites, and the lowest prevalence in Latinos. After multivariate adjustment, AACs were not associated with incident prostate cancer (HR=0.98, 95%CI: 0.93-1.03), and no racial/ethnic differences were observed (p interaction=0.12). However, AACs were significantly associated with a reduced risk of prostate cancer mortality (HR=0.79, 95CI:0.68-0.93). After stratification, all racial/ethnic groups showed an inverse association (HR range 0.60-0.90, all p&gt;0.05). Among men with AACs, a comparison of men with or without medication use showed similar risks of prostate cancer incidence (HR=1.01, 95%CI:0.93-1.10) and prostate cancer mortality (HR=1.00, 95%CI: 0.77-1.31). Moreover, there was no significant difference between duration of medication use and prostate cancer risk (p trend=0.4), suggesting that the inverse association between AACs and prostate cancer mortality was not due to medication use. In survival analysis among prostate cancer cases, men with AACs also showed a reduced risk of dying from prostate cancer (HR overall=0.75, 95CI:0.63-0.89; HRs by race/ethnicity all&lt;1, with p's&gt;0.05). Adjusting for the potential confounding effect of PSA screening did not meaningfully change the results. In summary, we found an inverse association between AACs and prostate cancer mortality across White, African-American, Native Hawaiian, Japanese-American, and Latino men, which was independent of the effect of PSA screening. Further etiological research on the relationship between allergic response and prostate cancer progression is warranted.

Citation Format: Anqi Wang, Peggy Wan, Loic Le Marchand, Lynne R Wilkens, Christopher A. Haiman. Atopic allergic conditions and prostate cancer risk in the Multiethnic Cohort Study [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Virtual Conference: 14th AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2021 Oct 6-8. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2022;31(1 Suppl):Abstract nr PO-187.