Height and the survival of prostate cancer patients.

We investigated the associations between height and other anthropometric factors and the survival of 584 prostate cancer patients, initially recruited for a population-based, case-control study. During a median of 6.6 years of follow-up, 129 prostate cancer deaths and 153 deaths because of other causes were identified. After adjusting for age, cancer stage, and grade, the relative risk and 95% confident intervals for prostate cancer death were 1.0 (reference), 0.9 (0.6-1.4), 0.5 (0.3-0.9), and 0.6 (0.3-1.0) for patients whose heights were <1.75 m, 1.75-1.79 m, 1.80-1.84 m, and > or =1.85 m, respectively (P for trend = 0.01). Similar associations were found in subgroup analyses by cancer stage, cancer grade, age, race, and occupation-based socioeconomic status. However, height was not associated with death because of other causes. In addition, no significant associations were found between body mass index or weight and either prostate cancer death or death because of other causes. Our results suggest that greater height may be associated with better survival of prostate cancer patients.