Possible Association Between Androgenic Alopecia and Risk of Prostate Cancer and Testicular Germ Cell Tumor: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

March 2018 in “ BMC Cancer ”

Wei-Jun Liang, Liuying Song, Zheng Peng, Yan Zou, Sheng-Ming Dai

androgenic alopecia AGA frontal baldness vertex patterns prostate cancer PC testicular germ cell tumor TGCT androgen status tumorigenesis baldness hair loss

TLDR Baldness, especially at the front, may lower the risk of testicular cancer by 31%, but its link to prostate cancer is unclear.

In 2018, Liang et al. conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis involving 10,935 cases from 21 observational studies to investigate the potential association between androgenic alopecia (AGA) and the risk of prostate cancer (PC) and testicular germ cell tumor (TGCT). The study found that AGA, particularly frontal baldness, was associated with a 31% decrease in the incidence of TGCT. However, the association between AGA and PC was less clear, with positive results only observed in vertex patterns of AGA and high-grade PC. The study concluded that AGA might reflect androgen status more directly and be less affected by other factors, thus being inversely related to tumorigenesis in TGCT. However, the idea that AGA could be used as a phenotypic marker for PC risk was not strongly supported, and more comprehensive studies were needed to further evaluate these relationships.

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