Prostate Cancer Statistics

Each year about 200,000 new cases of prostate cancer are diagnosed and almost 30,000 men die of prostate cancer in the United States. During the next 10 years, the number of men diagnosed with prostate cancer is expected to increase by 40% to almost 300,000 a year, and the number of prostate cancer deaths could rise to 50,000 per year.

Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer, next to skin cancer, in American men. One man in six will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during his lifetime, and one man in thirty-two will die of this disease.

While most young men are not likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer, the risk of getting it increases with age. Men who are under 30 years old have only a .01% chance of being diagnosed with prostate cancer. In men between the ages of 30-40 the chances are 0.29%. The percentage goes up in men between the ages of 40-50 to a 2.23% chance of being diagnosed with it. After 50, the percentages begin to increase dramatically; men between the ages of 50-60 have a 6.45% chance of getting it. Men between the ages of 60-70 have a 8.36% chance and over the age of 70, the percentage chance of getting prostate cancer is between 11.84% and 15.81%.

African-American men are more likely to get prostate cancer, than whites. White men have the second highest incidence of getting prostate cancer, followed by Hispanics, Asian/Pacific Islanders, and American Indian/Alaska Native men. The reasons for this are not known, however, ethnic Africans who live in Africa do no show this high incidence or a such a high mortality rate. This leads some researchers to believe that the cause of the higher rate of getting the disease is not due to race or ethnicity, but is due to environmental factors that are present outside of Africa. Every year, more research is done to try to discover the reasons for this disparity in the incidence of prostate cancer.

Prostate cancer is responsible for about 30,000 deaths per year in the U.S., and it is the second leading cause of cancer death in men, exceeded only by deaths from lung cancer.

The mortality rate percentages among men diagnosed with prostate cancer are as follows: 98% survive at least 5 years, 84% survive at least 10 years, and 56% survive at least 15 years. These figures include all stages of prostate cancer, but do not include men who die from other causes related to prostate cancer.

Again, there is a disparity in the mortality rates between races. African-American men are more likely to die of prostate cancer than any other group with a mortality rate of 56%. White men have the second highest rate of deaths from prostate cancer at 27%, followed by men who are American Indian/Alaska Native at 20%, men who are Hispanic at 19%, and men who are Asian/Pacific Islander at 10%.

In the United States, 86% of all prostate cancers are diagnosed when the cancer is still confined to the prostate, or when it has only spread from the prostate to nearby areas, but not to distant sites such as other organs. The 5-year survival rate for these men is almost 100%. If the cancer has spread to other, distant parts of the body such as the lymph nodes or the bones, it is called metastatic prostate cancer. About 6% of diagnosed cancers have already spread to distant parts of the body at the time of diagnosis. Of this group of men who have metastatic prostate cancer, only 34% will survive at least 5 years.

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