Aspirin Use is Associated with Lower Prostate Cancer Risk in Male Carriers of BRCA Mutations

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that male BRCA mutation carriers stand at increased risk of developing prostate cancer and have concerns about developing cancer. Genetic counseling practitioners often discuss strategies for reducing the risk of cancer for patients at high risk due to their genetic background. Addressing modifiable health habits is one such strategy. Unfortunately, modifiable risk factors for prostate cancer have only been documented in the general population and have not yet been studied in the BRCA carrier subpopulation. Therefore, this study aimed to identify modifiable risk factors for prostate cancer in BRCA carriers. We examined prostate cancer risk factors in 74 men who were part of families with a BRCA mutation. This study examined nine dichotomous variables including: exercise, history of vasectomy, smoking history, alcohol use, finasteride use, statin use, aspirin use, coffee use, and vitamin use. The survey was sent to all cases of prostate cancer in the Hereditary Cancer Center Database at Creighton University with a known BRCA status. This study confirmed the protective benefits of daily aspirin use, which have been observed in previous studies of the general population, and suggests its benefit in BRCA carriers. Protective benefits from regular vigorous exercise and daily coffee use trended towards significance, but neither factor withstood the Bonferroni Correction for multiple comparisons.

The Association Between Vasectomy and Prostate Cancer

“…Among the 53 included studies, 16 were cohort studies (2 563 519 participants), 33 were case-control studies (44 536 participants), and 4 were cross-sectional studies (12 098 221 participants) . Although most studies were population- or registry-based analyses, several articles presented single- or multiple-institution analyses (Table).…”

“…[16][17][18][19]32,33,37,38 Most case-control studies (26 [79%]) were considered to have a moderate to high risk of bias. 8,9,39,40,42,43,[45][46][47][48]51,52,[54][55][56][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68] Although cases were typically well defined, the use of hospital-based instead of community-based controls was considered a potential source of bias among many case-control studies. Ascertainment of exposure was also a common source of bias among casecontrol studies.…”

The strategies to control prostate cancer by chemoprevention approaches

“…In yet another study involving 47,882 patients, aspirin usage was not found to reduce total PCA incidence, but potentially reduced the occurrence of metastatic disease [82]. This may be related to the findings of another study of 74 men from families with the BRCA mutation where it was found that daily aspirin use conferred some protection against PCA [83]. Another study of 29,450 men also found PCA protective benefits of daily aspirin usage [84].…”

Live Imaging and Gene Expression Analysis in Zebrafish Identifies a Link between Neutrophils and Epithelial to Mesenchymal Transition

“…Chronic inflammation associated with diseases like Rheumatoid Arthritis, Crohns disease, Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and pancreatitis is known to increase cancer risk [4], [5] and neutrophil depletion has been shown to reduce tumor burden in a mouse model of lung cancer [6]. The connection between inflammation and cancer risk is further supported by studies that suggest that treatment with anti-inflammatory agents can decrease the incidence of some cancers [7]–[9]. Although chronic inflammation has been linked to EMT and cancer invasion [10]–[12], it is not clear how innate immune inflammation is associated with EMT and participates in cancer progression.…”