Prostate Cancer Fact Sheet

• Prostate cancer is the most common non-skin cancer in America. In 2010, over 230,000 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer, and nearly 30,000 men will die from it.
• One in six American men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer each year, making men 35% more likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer than women are to be diagnosed with breast cancer.
• One new case occurs every 3 minutes and a man dies from prostate cancer every 17 minutes.
• After lung cancer, prostate cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death among men in the U.S.
• A non-smoking man is more likely to get prostate cancer than lung, bronchus, colon, rectal, bladder, lymphoma, melanoma, oral, and kidney cancers combined. African-American men are 65% more likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer (one in four) than Caucasian Americans and are more than twice as likely to die from it. The reasons for this disparity are not yet known.
• It is estimated that there are over 2 million American men currently living with prostate cancer.
• Early prostate cancer usually has no symptoms and is most-commonly detected through prostate cancer screening tests such as the PSA blood test and a digital rectal exam (DRE). A diagnosis of prostate cancer is made via biopsy of the prostate; examination of the cancer cells removed during the biopsy as well as additional imaging tests enable physicians to determine the stage of disease.
• Prostate cancer can be eliminated from the body by surgery or radiation ??? if diagnosed at an early stage. However, every year, 70,000 men require additional treatment due to a recurrence of prostate cancer.
• Prostate cancer survival rates are based on large groups of people and cannot be used to predict what will happen to a particular patient. Because prostate cancer is a relatively slow-growing cancer, the 5-year survival rate for prostate cancer diagnosed at all stages and all races is approximately 98%. The relative 10-year survival rate is 84% and the 15-year survival rate is 56%. The survivable rate for early diagnosis and treatment when the cancer is localized is nearly 100%.
• The chance of having prostate cancer increases rapidly after age 50. More than 70 percent of all prostate cancers are diagnosed in men over the age of 65. It is still unclear why this increase with age occurs for prostate cancer.
• The only well-established risk factors for prostate cancer are age, ethnicity and family history of the disease; however, high dietary fat intake may also be a significant risk factor. A recent study shows that the risk of dying from prostate cancer increases with body weight.

Back to Top