Impact of family history on oncological outcomes in primary therapy for localized prostate cancer patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Abstract Background The influence of family history on oncological outcomes of prostate cancer remains controversial. We conducted a systematic literature review and meta-analysis to investigate the impact of family history of localized prostate cancer on oncological outcomes. Methods On May 2020, we systematically searched MEDLINE, the Cochrane library, and Scopus for studies that compared patients who had localized prostate cancer with or without a positive family history of prostate cancer. Our aim was to evaluate the association of family history with biochemical recurrence-free survival, cancer-specific survival, and overall survival by means of a multivariate Cox regression analysis. Results Eleven studies with 39,716 patients were included in the systematic review, and eight studies with 33,027 patients for the meta-analysis. A positive family history was not associated with worse biochemical recurrence-free survival (pooled HR: 0.96; 95% CI: 0.79–1.17) or cancer-specific survival (pooled HR: 1.1; 95% CI: 0.52–2.35). Subgroup analyses showed no association between positive family history and poor biochemical recurrence-free survival in prostate cancer patients treated with radical prostatectomy (pooled HR: 0.99; 95% CI: 0.76–1.31) or radiation therapy (pooled HR: 0.93; 95% CI: 0.67–1.30). Conclusions This meta-analysis indicated that family history of prostate cancer does not increase the risk of biochemical recurrence or cancer-specific mortality in localized prostate cancer patients.