Early baldness, prostate cancer linked
Men who start losing their hair at the age of 20 have a greater risk of developing prostate cancer later on in life, a new study suggests.
Scientists had long known that men who more readily convert the male hormone testosterone into a form called DHT are at a higher risk of developing prostate cancer and go bald.
French researchers, who studied more than 670 men with and without prostate cancer, found that those with the disease were twice as likely to have become bald when they were 20.
The study, however, found no association between hair loss at the age of 20 and early diagnosis of prostate cancer or tumor aggressiveness.
Moreover, going bald at the age 30 or 40 had no effect on prostate cancer risk in the studied individuals, researchers wrote in Annals of Oncology.
Researchers believe that better understanding of the association may help physicians identify those who benefit more from prostate cancer screening and possible early treatment.
"At present there is no hard evidence to show any benefit from screening the general population for prostate cancer. We need a way of identifying those men who are at high risk," said Philippe Giraud of the Hopital Europeen Georges Pompidou, Paris.
"We need a way of identifying those men who are at high risk of developing the disease and who could be targeted for screening and also considered for chemoprevention using anti-androgenic drugs such as finasteride," said Giraud.
"Balding at the age of 20 may be one of these easily identifiable risk factors and more work needs to be done now to confirm this," he added.
Male pattern baldness called androgenic alopecia affects about half of all men in their lifetime.
The drug finasteride, which is used to treat prostate enlargement symptoms, has also become popular in recent years for treating baldness as it effectively blocks the conversion of testosterone to DHT.
Source: presstv.ir
