Erythrocyte fatty acids and prostate cancer risk: A comparison of methods☆
Received 4 December 2009; received in revised form 11 June 2010; accepted 24 June 2010. published online 15 July 2010. Corrected Proof
Abstract
The role of fatty acids (FA) in prostate carcinogenesis is unclear. Interest in the inter-relationship among different types of FA has resulted in new analytic approaches to FA and their role in cancer development.
We evaluated the association between erythrocyte FA and prostate cancer in 127 prostate cancer patients and 183 screen negative controls. We present three approaches to the analyses of the FA and prostate cancer association; (1) individual or common groups of FA, (2) biologically meaningful FA ratios and (3) principal components analysis.
Monounsaturated FA and the alpha-linolenic:eicosapentaenoic ratio were associated with reduced risk of prostate cancer. However, Factor 1, which was strongly correlated with some long chain saturated FA, was associated with an increased risk of prostate cancer.
We provide an example of modeling FA and their inter-relationships on the risk of prostate cancer. Comparing three approaches suggests the importance of considering the impact of the entire fatty acid profile in disease prevention.
aOregon Health & Science University, 3181 SW Sam Jackson Park Road, Portland, OR 97239-3098, USA
bPortland Veterans Affairs Medical Center, 2710 US Veterans Hospital Road, Portland, OR 97239-9823, USA
cPublic Health Sciences Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA 98101, USA
Corresponding author at: Oregon Health & Science University, 3181 SW Sam Jackson Park Road, Portland, OR 97239-3098, USA.
☆ Work Supported by: United States Public Health Service grants (5 M01 RR000334), (1 UL1 RR024120-01) and (K22CA94973) and was supported by the resources and facilities of the Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Biostatistics support was provided through the Knight Cancer Institute Biostatistics Shared Resource (P30 CA069533-09) and the Oregon Clinical and Translational Research Institute (UL1 RR024140).
ABSTRACT