Prostate Cancer Death Rates

According to the American Cancer Society, the death rate for patients with prostate cancer is at an all-time low. This is great news for all men who have been diagnosed with this disease. But what has caused the death rate for prostate cancer patients to decline?

More than 200,000 new patients are diagnosed with prostate cancer worldwide each year. Prostate cancer affects approximately 190,000 new patients annually in the United States and around 30,000 patients die each year from prostate cancer.

Death Rate Decline Causes
The biggest reason for the decline in the death rate of prostate patients is the fact that more men are having annual exams performed by their physicians. This has enabled physicians to catch the disease in its earliest stages. The earlier the stage of cancer is detected, the better the treatment options and the better chance for a cure.

The survival rate increases for those who have the earlier stages of this type of cancer when treatment is received. If the cancer continues to progress, then the survival rate decreases. Because men are now receiving annual exams, more and more cases of cancer of the prostate are being detected in the earlier forms, which have now caused the death rate to decline.

Because of the many men who are now seeking the annual exam, more and more cases of this type of cancer has been diagnosed. The PSA blood test and the digital rectal exam have allowed physicians to diagnose patients who might have otherwise never been diagnosed with prostate cancer. The PSA blood test helps detect prostate problems even earlier than the digital rectal exam. However, some prostate cancer grows at such a slow pace that if left untreated, it may never affect the patient. So now, physicians are trying to determine how to better take these results and interpret the needed treatments.

Hormone treatments have been proven to slow down the progression or growth of prostate cancer, but until now, there has not been a link between hormone therapy and the fact that this approach saves lives. However, with the current death rate at an all-time recorded low (since 1950 for Caucasian men; since 1969 for African American men), studies now show that there is sufficient evidence that hormone therapy is an appropriate treatment for the cancer of the prostate.

More than 5,000 studies have been performed on the effectiveness of hormone therapy with the results being inconclusive; however, when all of that data is analyzed from all 5,000 studies as a group, there is sufficient evidence that supports the idea that hormone therapy does work. New studies are now being performed to determine whether hormone therapy in conjunction with other treatment options will be even more effective.