Prostate-specific Antigen Levels in Moroccan Diabetic Males: A Cross-sectional Study

Background: Recent studies have shown an inverse relationship between diabetes and prostate- specific antigen (PSA) levels.

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the PSA levels in the serum of diabetic and non-diabetic Moroccan males.

Methods: In a cross-sectional study, four hundred and seventy diabetic and 869 non-diabetic males were screened from January 2015 to April 2016 at Pasteur institute of Morocco. Hemoglobin A1c and Fasting Blood Glucose were measured using high performance liquid chromatography and dry chemistry, respectively. We used a chemiluminescent microparticle immunoassay technology to evaluate the levels of Serum PSA and testosterone.

Results: Overall, the PSA levels revealed no significant difference between diabetic and non-diabetic males (1.31 ± 0.04ng/mL vs.1.36 ± 0.03ng/mL, p = 0.380, respectively). The PSA levels increased with age both in non-diabetics and diabetics. Moreover, in diabetic subjects, the PSA levels were less age dependent (p =0.002) than in non-diabetic (p < 0.0001). The stratified analysis showed that the PSA was significantly lower in diabetic than in non-diabetic subjects aged between 50-59 years (p= 0.0004). Furthermore, no significant testosterone concentrations were observed in the subjects with or without diabetes (p= 0.904).

Conclusion: Our results show that the PSA levels are age-dependant in diabetic and non-diabetic males but the PSA levels are affected by diabetes status only in the group aged between 50-59 years.