Abstract B89: The significance of Vitamin D deficiency and anaerobes in prostate cancer

Objective: Long-term sun exposure estimates correlate with risk of PC possibly due to long-term Vitamin D deficiency diminishing macrophage function allowing persistence of low grade pathogens causing chronic inflammation leading to Proliferative Inflammatory Atrophy and then cancer. Recently infection with two low grade pathogenic organisms, teenage acne associated Vitamin D sensitive anaerobic bacterium Propionibacterium.acnes (PA) and protozoan Trichomonas vaginalis (TA), have been notable exceptions. This presentation reports a systematic review of reports on anaerobes, circumcision and the association of sun exposure in causation of PC and considers how these observations could contributing to increased PC in Africa Methods: Pubmed searches using terms prostate or prostatic, sunshine or UVB or Vitamin D and acne or PA or TA were performed Results: Two systematic reviews of PC and Vitamin D failed to produce a consistent association. 4/4 studies of index of long-term sun exposure involving 1568 patients and 9/12 geographic studies demonstrated that high UVB exposure reduced PC risk. 4/5 publications on PA and PC and 2/3 publications on TV and PC showed consistent increase risk of PC associated with infection. Ten studies involving 5681 patients demonstrated significant reduction of PC in circumcised individuals (OR 0.87), including one in African American Men showing lower incidence of circumcision possibly contributing to their higher frequency Conclusion: Reduced long-term Vitamin D mediated non-specific macrophage surveillance against low-grade pathogenic anaerobes could explain these associations with PC and increasing urbanisation could be a factor in the health inequality as measured by prostate cancer incidence in African-American men. Citation Format: Tim Oliver, Lucy Blackburn, Frank Chinegwundoh. The significance of Vitamin D deficiency and anaerobes in prostate cancer. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Seventh AACR Conference on The Science of Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; Nov 9-12, 2014; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2015;24(10 Suppl):Abstract nr B89.