Prostate Cancer an Overview

Prostate Cancer: An Overview

Today

  • Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in the United States.1
  • Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer related deaths in men, with 30,350 prostate cancer related deaths predicted in 2005 alone.2
  • Prostate cancer makes up one-third of all cancer cases in men.3
  • There will be a projected 232,090 prostate cancer cases in men this year.2
  • There are more than two million American men currently living with prostate cancer.4
  • One new case of prostate cancer occurs every 2.5 minutes, and a man dies from prostate cancer every 17 minutes.4

In a Lifetime

  • The chance that a man will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in his lifetime is 1 in 6.5
  • The chance that a man will die from the disease is 1 in 33.3
  • By age 50, about one-third of American men have microscopic signs of prostate cancer.6
  • African-American men have about a 60% higher incidence rate than Caucasian men, and a mortality rate that is 2-times that of their white counterparts.7

Testing and Costs

  • Recent studies indicate current detection and diagnoses methods often produce inaccurate results.8
  • Doctors at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio studied 5,000 men over a seven-year period. Research revealed men with PSA levels as low as 1.0 developed prostate cancer while others with much higher PSAs did not.8
  • Not including pathology costs, a prostate biopsy costs approximately $900 (with Medicare, the cost is around $400).9
  • The cost of a one-time prostate cancer screening of U.S. men over 50 years of age has been estimated at between $12 billion and $28 billion.10
  • The total discounted cost per patient for a combined digital rectal examination and PSA measurement is estimated to range from $161 to $414.10

1 National Cancer Institute, Prostate Cancer,
2 National Cancer Institute, Seer Cancer Statistics Review 1975-2002,
3 American Cancer Society Cancer Statistics 2005 Presentation,
4 Prostate Cancer Foundation, Prostate Cancer Facts,
5 National Cancer Institute, Cancer Stat Fact Sheets,
6 National Cancer Institute, Treatment Choices,
7 National Cancer Institute, Incidence and Mortality,

8 PSA Test No Longer Gives Clear Answers, Gina Kolata, New York Times: June 20, 2005, citing The Journal of the American Medical Association, July 6 2005 issue,
9 Neal D. Shore, MD, FACS, Medical Director, Carolina Urologic Research Center,
10 The American Medical Association, Screening and Early Detection of Prostate Cancer