Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty Publications

Urinary Estrogen Metabolites and Prostate Cancer Risk: A Pilot Study

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-1-2011

Journal Title

Prostate

ISSN

1097-0045

Volume

71

Issue

5

First Page

507

Last Page

516

DOI

10.1002/pros.21262

PubMed ID

20886539

PubMed Central® ID

PMC3037420

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The high incidence of and few identified risk factors for prostate cancer underscore the need to further evaluate markers of prostate carcinogenesis. The aim of this pilot study was to evaluate urinary estrogen metabolites as a biomarker of prostate cancer risk.

METHODS: Using a liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method, urinary concentrations of 15 estrogen metabolites were determined in 77 prostate cancer cases, 77 healthy controls, and 37 subjects who had no evidence of prostate cancer after a prostate biopsy.

RESULTS: We observed an inverse association between the urinary 16-ketoestradiol (16-KE2) and 17-epiestriol (17-epiE3)--metabolites with high estrogenic activity--and prostate cancer risk. Men in the lowest quartile of 16-KE2, had a 4.6-fold risk of prostate cancer (OR=4.62, 95% CI=1.34-15.99), compared with those in the highest quartile.

CONCLUSIONS: We observed modest differences in estrogen metabolite concentrations between prostate cancer patients and subjects without cancer. Larger studies with both androgen and estrogen measurements are needed to confirm these results to clarify further whether estrogen metabolites are independent biomarkers for prostate cancer risk and whether androgen/estrogen imbalance influences prostate cancer risk.

Keywords

Aged, Biomarkers, Tumor, Case-Control Studies, Chromatography, Liquid, Estrogens, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Pilot Projects, Prostatic Neoplasms, Statistics, Nonparametric, Tandem Mass Spectrometry

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