Metabolic syndrome (MetS) and prostate cancer (PC) share several risk factors. In addition to increased cardiovascular risk, there is evidence that men with MetS have an increased PC risk. Given that both diseases develop over decades, PC diagnosis may precede the onset of MetS, and may be an early indicator of cardiovascular risk. We sought to determine if PC diagnosis is associated with increased risk of subsequent cardiovascular event. In our population-based study using administrative databases, men with PC identified using the Ontario Cancer Registry were hard-matched and propensity score-matched to men without PC diagnosis identified using the Registered Persons Database. Competing risks analyses were performed to compare risk of cardiovascular events. Contrary to our hypothesis, men with PC were less likely to experience a cardiovascular event compared to men without PC (sub-distributional HR=0.92, 95%CI=0.88-0.96). The difference was not clinically significant. Selection bias and confounding may explain this unexpected result.M.Sc
