Post Doctoral Fellowship: The Stimulation of IGF-R1 by Insulin in the Progression of Prostate Cancer

Objectives: The object of this nested case control study is to determine the impact of insulin exposure on prostate cancer progression. Prostate cancer (PCa) is the most common tumor of men, affecting more than two million Americans; an additional 180,000 are diagnosed each year.1 Recently, several scientific reports have found a link between PCa and type II diabetes mellitus (T2DM), a condition which affects approximately 17 million people. 2-12 Based on the available data, we hypothesize that the stimulation of the insulin growth factor receptor by excessive endogenous insulin or synthetic insulin analogues increases the tumor aggressiveness and accelerates the progression of prostate cancer over normal insulin production.