Biologic Mechanism May be Linked to Racial Disparities in Prostate Cancer
In the United States, African American men are 1.6 times more likely to develop prostate cancer and more than 2.5 times as likely to die from the disease than non-Hispanic white men, according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. A study by David P. Turner, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, and colleagues has found a potential biologic factor that may be contributing to these racial disparities in prostate cancer. The findings were presented at the Sixth AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved, held December 6 to 9 in Atlanta.
According to the study, a potential mechanistic link between carbohydrate-derived metabolites, including molecules called advanced glycation end products (AGEs), and cancer-associated pathways may provide a biologic link with socioeconomic and environmental factors that are known to drive cancer health disparity. AGEs accumulate in body tissue and have been implicated in diseases associated with aging, such as diabetes, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s disease, but have not been studied in cancer, said Dr. Turner. Apart from their production during normal metabolism, AGEs also form through food—particularly processed foods high in sugar and fat—and lack of exercise.
Study Methods and Findings
Dr. Turner and colleagues examined circulating and intratumoral AGE metabolite levels in 16 African American and 16 non-Hispanic white men with prostate cancer. They found that AGE levels were higher in serum from patients with cancer compared with individuals without cancer. When analyzing AGE levels in prostate tumor samples, the researchers found the levels were highest in the tumor samples from African American patients. In addition, AGE levels in the prostate tumors correlated with levels of a molecule to which AGEs bind to mediate their effects.
“We know that African American men are 2.5 times more likely to die from prostate cancer than their Caucasian counterparts, and there are a lot of things that contribute to that [disparity], such as low income, lack of exercise, bad diet, and treatment differences,” said Dr. Turner.
“A lot of evidence now shows that it’s not just these disparity factors [that contribute to increased prostate cancer and death]," he continued. "There are actually differences in the tumors themselves, which are biologically different between African American and non-Hispanic white men, but we really don’t understand them. Identifying that these AGEs are increased in African American men compared to Caucasians provides a potential biologic mechanism, because they result in signaling differences within the cell and can promote cancer itself.”
The study was funded in part by the National Institutes of Health as part of the South Carolina Cancer Disparities Research Center. Dr. Turner reported no conflicts of interest.
The content in this post has not been reviewed by the American Society of Clinical Oncology, Inc. (ASCO®) and does not necessarily reflect the ideas and opinions of ASCO®.
