Is opium addiction a risk factor for benign prostatic hyperplasia?

Prostate enlargement is a common issue amongst men, which causes significant side effects for aging men. Regarding the high prevalence of prostate enlargement and opium addiction and its derivatives, assessing the relationship between opium use with prostate enlargement may be an exciting issue.

This was a cross-sectional study. There were two groups; the case group contained men with a history of at least one year of opium abuse. The control group was men in the same age range referred to university-affiliated hospitals for ultrasonography for other reasons except for prostate problems. The prostate size and demographic information of patients were recorded. The prostate volume of more than 20 ml was considered as an enlarged prostate.

212 males participated in the study from December 2018 to March 2019 at Namazi Hospital of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, including 78 drug abuse patients (mean age=39.08±6.52 years old) in the case group and 134 (mean age=40.69±6.28 years old) in the control group. The mean prostate size in the addict group was significantly higher than in the healthy group (P=0.005). There was a significant correlation between the size of the prostate and the age in both groups. However, there was no correlation between prostate size and body mass index.

Due to a decrease in the sexual desire of addicted people, we first expected to face smaller prostates in addicted men; however, the study results proved the opposite. One explanation can be that the decreased libido increases the likelihood  of fluid accumulation in the prostate, this might lead to chronic inflammatory reactions, hypertrophy, and prostate hyperplasia. Therefore, a more comprehensive study is needed to investigate the interaction between the drug and prostate tissue.  Finally, it can be concluded that addiction to opium and its derivatives can increase the chance of prostate enlargement. Due to the lack of previous studies in this field, it seems necessary to conduct additional studies with larger sample sizes and control confounding factors.