(BLOOMBERG) — Balding middle-aged men have a greater chance of getting aggressive prostate cancer later in life than those with a full head of hair, say researchers who suggest the result may one day help doctors predict the disease.
The study reviewed the cases of 39,070 men 55 to 74 years old who were asked to use a pictorial to identify their own baldness at age 45. Those with moderate hair loss on the front and crown of the head were 39 percent more at risk of getting fast-growing, aggressive prostate cancer, the study found.
The results, published today in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, need to be affirmed by more study, said Michael Cook, the paper’s author and a researcher at the National Cancer Institute in Rockville, Maryland. If they are, doctors may one day use the hairline to help determine treatment strategies for a malignancy that kills almost 30,000 Americans a year.