Metabolic syndrome is not associated with greater evidences of proliferative inflammatory atrophy and inflammation in patients with suspected prostate cancer

Introduction and objectives

To evaluate the association between metabolic syndrome (MetS) and proliferative inflammatory atrophy (PIA) in patients with suspected prostate cancer (PCa).

Patients and methods

From June 2015 to July 2016, we conducted the FIERY (Flogosis Increased Events of pRostatic biopsY) study at the Urology section, Department of Surgery of the University of Catania (Local registration number: #131/2015).A total of 205 patients with elevated prostate-specific antigen (≥ 4 ng/ml) or clinical suspicion of PCa who underwent primary transperineal prostate biopsy were included in this cross-sectional study.The assessment of PIA, HGPIN, and PCa were performed by 2 experienced pathologists and samples were investigated for the presence of an inflammatory infiltrate, according to the Irani score. Primary and secondary Gleason grade of tumor in positive biopsies were evaluated according to the 2016 ISUP Modified Gleason System.

Results

In the entire cohort, median age was 68.0 (interquartile range: 62.0–74.5), median prostate-specific antigen was 6.5 (interquartile range: 5.51–9.57). The prevalence of MetS was 34.1%, the detection rate of PCa was 32.7%, the rate of PIA was 28.3%, the rate of HGPIN was 32.2%, whereas the rate of severe intraprostatic inflammation (Irani-score ≥4) was 28.8%.When comparing clinical and histological variables in patients without and with PIA, metabolic aberrations where not significantly different in both groups. We did not find statistical association in detection rate of PCa (29.3% vs. 34.0%; P = 0.07) and HGPIN (27.6% vs. 34.0%; P = 0.37) in patients with and without PIA, respectively. When considering metabolic aberrations, MetS was not associated with Irani-score ≥4 (28.6% vs. 28.4%; P = 0.96) and none of each component was statistically predictive of severe inflammation.At the multivariable logistic regression analysis, PIA, HGPIN, and MetS were not associated with greater risk of PCa.

Conclusion

In this study, we did not show an association between MetS and PIA and PCa. Although the small sample size and the cross-sectional nature of the study, we do not suppose that MetS could be associated with greater evidence of PIA. Further studies should be conducted to evaluate the exact nature of this pathological lesion.