Patients of inflammatory bowel disease at higher risk of prostate cancer, reports study

A 20-year long study published in the European Urology has reported that male patients suffering from inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) have a high risk of developing prostate cancer(PCa).

The findings showed that men with IBD have higher than average prostate-specific antigen (PSA), a substance produced by the prostate gland. Elevated PSA levels may indicate prostate cancer, a non-cancerous condition such as prostatitis, or an enlarged prostate.

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"These patients may need to be screened more carefully than a man without inflammatory bowel disease," said Shilajit Kundu, Associate Professor from Northwestern University in the US.

Jacob Burns and his associates conducted a retrospective, matched-cohort study involving a single academic medical center from 1996 to 2017 to compare the incidence of prostate cancer between men with and those without IBD. The median age of both case and control groups at first PSA measurement was 53 years.

The study found that IBD was associated with a substantially increased risk of any and clinically significant prostate cancer among a screened population. Further, older men with IBD had higher serum PSA levels than matched controls.

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The results indicate that with increasing age, there was a growing disparity in median PSA levels between cases and controls. While the incidence of PCa may have contributed to discrepancies in PSA values, prostatic inflammation is also known to elevate serum PSA levels.

"The link between prostatitis and PSA is thought to be due to disruption of the cellular architecture of the prostate. Subsequent repetitive tissue destruction and regeneration may play a role in the development of PCa, ”write the authors.

India is projected to have one of the highest disease burden of IBD across the globe.IBD can no longer be considered in its infancy in India. With the upsurge in both the disease burden and the population, India is projected to have amongst the highest numbers of IBD patients in the world.