A prospective study of plasma 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentration and prostate cancer risk

Mechanistic hypotheses suggest that vitamin D and the closely related parathyroid hormone (PTH) may be involved in prostate carcinogenesis. However, epidemiological evidence is lacking for PTH and inconsistent for vitamin D. Our objectives were to prospectively investigate the association between vitamin D status, vitamin D-related gene polymorphisms, PTH and prostate cancer risk. A total of 129 cases diagnosed within the Supplementation en Vitamines et Mineraux Antioxydants cohort were included in a nested case-control study and matched to 167 controls (13 years of follow-up). 25-Hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) and PTH concentrations were assessed from baseline plasma samples. Conditional logistic regression models were computed. Higher 25(OH)D concentration was associated with decreased risk of prostate cancer (ORQ4 v. Q1 0.30; 95 % CI 0.12, 0.77; P-trend = 0.007). PTH concentration was not associated with prostate cancer risk (P-trend = 0.4) neither did the studied vitamin D-related gene polymorphisms. In this prospective study, prostate cancer risk was inversely associated with 25(OH)D concentration but not with PTH concentration. These results bring a new contribution to the understanding of the relationship between vitamin D and prostate cancer, which deserves further investigation.