Jewish ethnicity and prostate cancer mortality in two large US cohorts.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate prospectively the relationship between Jewish ethnicity and prostate cancer mortality.


METHODS
Men were selected from white male participants in two large American Cancer Society cohorts: Cancer Prevention Studies I (CPS-I) (enrolled in 1959 and followed through 1972) and II (CPS-II) (enrolled in 1982 and followed through 1996). During the follow-up periods there were 1,751 prostate cancer deaths among 417,018 men in CPS-1 and 3594 deaths among 447,780 men in CPS-II. Cox proportional hazards modeling was used to compute rate ratios (RR) and to adjust for known and suspected risk factors for prostate cancer.


RESULTS
Prostate cancer death rates were substantially lower among Jewish men than other white men in both cohorts (multivariate adjusted rate ratios (RR) = 0.54, 95% CI = 0.38-0.77 in CPS-I; RR = 0.72, 95% CI = 0.61-0.86 in CPS-II). Factors such as tobacco avoidance and measured dietary patterns did not account for this difference. Lower prostate cancer death rates were observed among Jewish men regardless of place of birth of the participants or their parents.


CONCLUSIONS
Prostate cancer death rates are lower among Jewish men in the US and in Israel than among non-Jewish US white men. This may reflect persistent differences in unknown environmental risk factors or possible genetic susceptibility.
Rodriguez
Carmen
C
Department of Epidemiology and Surveillance Research, American Cancer Society, Atlanta, GA 30329-4251, USA.
Jacobs
Eric J
EJ
Patel
Alpa V
AV
Calle
Eugenia E
EE
Feigelson
Heather Spencer
HS
Fakhrabadi-Shokoohi
Dorna
D
Thun
Michael J
MJ
D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged; D015331:Cohort Studies; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007585:Jews / Q000235:genetics*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009026:Mortality / Q000639:trends; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D016017:Odds Ratio; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011471:Prostatic Neoplasms / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000401:mortality*; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012307:Risk Factors; D016019:Survival Analysis; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D044465:White People / Q000235:genetics*