Prostate Cancer Statistics

Here are some statistics on prostate cancer, relative to the year 2007:

• 559.650 Americans are expected to die of all forms of cancer, cancer being exceeded in the US only by heart diseases. Survival rates have improved in the last decade, being now to about 66% (1996-2002), and growing from a 55% between 1975-1977. This increase reflects the higher early-stage rate in cancer diagnosis and the better prostate cancer treatments options nowadays.
• 218.890 (29% of all cancers) men are expected to be diagnosed with PCa in 2007. Prostate cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in men (Source: Cancer Facts and Figures 2007- American Cancer Society- page 17)
• 27.050 (9% of all cancers) men are expected to loose their lives because of PCa
• more than 90% of cancer are discovered relatively early, that is during the loca and regional stages. For these people, the future looks good: relative survival rate after 5 years is 100%. Over the past decades, the 5 years survival rates for all stages alltogether has increased from 69% to almost 100%. Recent data indicates that the 10-year survival rate is 93% and the 15-year survival rate is 77% (Source: Cancer Facts and Figures 2007- American Cancer Society- page 18)

[FIGURE 2 Prostate cancer incidence by stage for all ages. Data are from four Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results areas. From Potosky AL, Miller BA, Albertsen PC, Kramer BS. The role of increasing detection in the rising incidence of prostate cancer. JAMA 1995;273:548–52.

• there is a general trend of decline in prostate cancer mortality rates:

[FIGURA 1 The decline in age-adjusted prostate cancer mortality rates is shown for the period 1990–95. The rate changes are shown as percentages. From Mettlin CJ, Murphy GP. Why is the prostate cancer death rate declining in the United States? Cancer 1998;82:249–51.]