Calcium channel blocker use and the risk of prostate cancer

A recent study suggested that the risk of all cancers, including prostate c ancer, is increased by the use of calcium channel blockers. The objective o f this study was to determine whether prostate cancer is associated with ca lcium channel blocker use. A case-control study was conducted in Massachuse tts using cases diagnosed from December 1992 through February 1995. Cases w ere men identified by tumor registrars who were less than 70 years old with newly diagnosed prostate cancer. Controls were men with no history of pros tate cancer or symptoms of undiagnosed prostate cancer, and were matched to the cases on precinct of residence and half-decade of age. A total of 1217 eases of prostate cancer and 1400 community controls are included in this analysis. Data were collected by telephone interview. Multiple logistic reg ression was used to estimate relative risks for calcium channel blockers us e while controlling for confounding. The relative risk for prostate cancer for any use of calcium channel blockers relative to nonuse was 1.2 (95% con fidence interval [CI], 0.9-1.5). There was no evidence of a trend according to duration of use. When the analysis was confined to symptomatic men, the relative risk estimate was 1.1 (0.8-1.4) overall and 1.2 (0.8-1.7) among t hose aged 65 to 69 years. Relative risk estimates for the use of other clas ses of antihypertensive drugs among symptomatic men were close to 1.0; the corresponding estimates among asymptomatic men were generally further from 1.0. These findings suggest that calcium channel blockers do not increase t he risk of prostate cancer. The differences in the relative risk estimates between symptomatic and asymptomatic men are compatible with detection bias . Because of the widespread use of Prostate-Specific Antigen testing for ea rly detection of prostate cancer, potential detection bias needs to be cons idered in future studies of prostate cancer. (C) 1998 American Journal of H ypertension, Ltd.