Prostate cancer 'increases blood clot risk'

London, April 14 (ANI): A new research has shown that having prostate cancer can more than double a man's chances of suffering blood clots in his legs or lungs.

The study of 76,000 Swedish men, conducted by researchers at King's College London, also showed that the blood clot risk is greatest for men undergoing hormone therapy for the disease, reports Times Online.

Study's lead author Mieke Van Hemelrijck found that younger men undergoing hormone therapy for the disease were 21/2 times more likely than average to have a deep-vein thrombosis (DVT) and were nearly twice as much at risk of a pulmonary embolism.

Blood clots are a known hazard linked to cancer, for reasons that are not clear.

However, the new study is the first to demonstrate the specific association between clotting and prostate cancer.

For men who had received curative treatment the risk was doubled for pulmonary embolism and 1.73 times higher for DVT.

The study has been published in the journal The Lancet Oncology. (ANI)