The impact of diabetes and other metabolic disorders on prostate cancer prognosis.

AIMS

To investigate the impact of diabetes mellitus (DM) and other metabolic disorders on the survival of men with prostate cancer (PCa).

METHODS

We conducted a retrospective cohort-study based on 715 men with PCa, originally enrolled in an Italian case-control study between 1995 and 2002. Anthropometric measures, self-reported medical conditions, and Gleason score were assessed at enrollment. Adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) of death, with 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs), were estimated using Fine and Gray's regression model.

RESULTS

After a median follow-up of 11.6years, 244 (34.1%) deaths occurred, 77 (31.6%) due to PCa. Excess mortality from all causes was reported in PCa patients with DM (HR=1.56, 95% CI: 1.03-2.36), which increased to 1.76 (95% CI: 0.99-3.13) when at least two out of three metabolic disorders (i.e., waist circumference ≥102cm, drug-treated hypertension, and hypercholesterolemia) were additionally present. The impact of metabolic disorders was stronger on non-PCa-specific mortality with HRs equal to 2.21 (95% CI: 1.38-3.54) for DM, 1.45 (95% CI: 0.97-2.19) for waist circumference ≥102cm, and 1.63 (95% CI: 1.19-2.22) for drug-treated hypertension.

CONCLUSIONS

DM and other metabolic disorders unfavorably affected the survival of PCa patients, mainly impacting on the risk of death from causes other than PCa.