Color Blindness and Bladder Cancer Survival Rate
- A study published January 18, 2026, in JAMA Network Open suggests that prostate cancer screening using Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) tests may be less accurate for men with color...
- The study analyzed data from 2,672 men aged 50 to 69 participating in the UK ProtecT study, a randomized controlled trial evaluating prostate cancer screening.
- The researchers hypothesize that the link between color vision deficiency and false positive PSA results might potentially be related to the way men perceive the color of urine...
Could being colorblind make you less likely to survive bladder cancer? That’s the surprising hypothesis that researchers have proposed based on a small study.
The research, published Jan. 15 in the journal Nature Health,examined data from 135 patients with both bladder cancer and color blindness, and compared those patients to 135 patients with only bladder cancer. The data were taken from TriNetX, an international registry of electronic health records of more than 275 million patients.
among these health records, people who had both color blindness and a bladder cancer diagnosis had shorter survival times than did bladder cancer patients without the vision deficiency. those with color blindness had a 52% higher risk of dying within 20 years of their bladder cancer diagnosis, compared with the normal-vision group.
The study authors suggested a plausible reason for this observed difference: Color blindness may make it more diffic
Prostate Cancer screening May Be Less Accurate for Men with Color Vision Deficiency
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A study published January 18, 2026, in JAMA Network Open suggests that prostate cancer screening using Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) tests may be less accurate for men with color vision deficiency. Researchers at the university of Oxford found that men with color vision deficiency had a 17% higher risk of a false positive PSA result compared to men with normal color vision.
Understanding the Study’s Findings
The study analyzed data from 2,672 men aged 50 to 69 participating in the UK ProtecT study, a randomized controlled trial evaluating prostate cancer screening. Researchers discovered that among men with color vision deficiency, 28.9% received a false positive PSA result, compared to 24.7% of men with normal color vision.This difference equates to a hazard ratio of 1.17 (95% confidence interval,1.02 to 1.34),indicating a statistically important increased risk.The study authors note that color vision deficiency affects approximately 8% of males of Northern European ancestry.
Why Color Vision Deficiency Might Impact Screening Accuracy
The researchers hypothesize that the link between color vision deficiency and false positive PSA results might potentially be related to the way men perceive the color of urine samples used in some prostate cancer screening protocols. Urine color can be an indicator of prostate health, and individuals with color vision deficiencies may misinterpret these color cues. It’s important to note that routine screening for color vision deficiency is often not routine. Color vision deficiency tends to be more common in males than in females, per the study.
Expert Caution and study Limitations
The results of the new study should be interpreted with caution. Kasivisvanathan and Shang-ming Zhou, a professor in e-health at the University of Plymouth who wasn’t involved in the work, emphasized the limitations of the research. The study authors themselves acknowledged significant limitations. As a notable example, as color blindness frequently enough goes undiagnosed, it’s possible that some people with the condition were mistakenly added to the cohort without color blindness.