Prostate cancer mortality rate

However, several types of cancer do not respond well to treatment. For example, the majority of metastatic cancers cannot be cured by current chemotherapeutic methods or by any other type of treatment.11 In addition, some of the most common forms of adult neoplastic disease are difficult to treat by using anticancer drugs. As indicated in Table 36-9, the number of deaths associated with colorectal, prostate, and breast cancer is unacceptably high, and the mortality rate for lung cancer and pancreatic cancer is well over 90 percent in both men and women. 

Age-adjusted mortality rates for cancer at different sites in U.S. males are shown in Figure 1. It is evident from these data that cancer of the lung has steadily increased in males since 1935 corresponding to an approximate 20-year lag period after cigarette smoking first became popular. In marked contrast to this, the incidence of cancers of the colon and rectum, breast and prostate have increased only at a low rate since 1940. We logically conclude that industrial pollution, food additives, synthetic chemical products, etc., the levels of which have increased dramatically in our environment, are not associated with the development of these three cancer types. On the other hand, the mode of cooking has remained similar over this period, and thus is consonant with the cancer incidence data. 

A prospective American Cancer Society study found an increase in the mortality rates for colorectal and prostate cancer in overweight men and for endometrial, gallbladder, cervical, ovarian and breast cancer in overweight women (Lew 1985). An association with obesity is now firmly established for breast cancer in post-menopausal women, as well as for endometrial cancer and for renal cell cancer. Obesity may also play a part in the pathogenesis of colorectal, prostatic and pancreatic cancers in men (Caroll 1998). 

Mortality data are frequently used in cohort studies as opposed to incidence data because of the relative ease of obtaining information on deaths. In particular, the advent of the National Death Index has made mortality data more readily available. While all states maintain registries of incident cancer cases, many of the registries are relatively new and data quality can vary from state to state. Investigators conducting follow-up studies are required to comply with each state s requirements for use of the data. For cancers such as pancreatic cancer where survival is poor, mortality data is an excellent surrogate for the risk of the disease. For other cancers where the survival is much better, such as testicular cancer, mortality is a poor estimator of incidence. Table 15.5 describes the 5-year survival for several selected cancer sites for the period 1996-2004. As evident from the table, there is a considerable difference in survival rates for cancer of different sites. The 5-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer was only 5.1% compared to a survival rate of 98.9% for prostate cancer (SEER 2008). 

Prostate cancer is the second most frequently diagnosed cancer in men, with 782600 new cases projected to occur in 2007 [31]. Incidence rates vary widely between countries and ethnic populations, and disease rates differ by more that 100-fold between populations. The lowest yearly incidence rates occur in Asia (1.9 cases per 100000 in Tainjin, China) and the highest in North America and Scandinavia, especially in African-Americans (272 cases per 100000) [79, 80]. African-American men have furthermore the highest mortality rate for prostate cancer of any racial or ethnic group in the US. The age-adjusted prostate cancer-related mortality is 2.4 times higher for African-Americans than for whites. This dilference accounts for about 40% of the overall cancer mortality disparity between African-American and white men [31]. 

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