Prostate Cancer Statistics

Each year over 230,000 new cases of Prostate Cancer are diagnosed and over 30,000 men die OF prostate cancer in the United States. In North Carolina, there will be 6,810 new cases and ~900 deaths this year alone. During the next 10 years, the number of men diagnosed with prostate cancer is expected to increase by 40% to over 300,000 a year. The number of prostate cancer deaths could rise to 50,000 per year.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer, excluding skin cancers, in American men. One man in six will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during his lifetime, 1 man in 32 will die of this disease. African-American men are more likely to have prostate cancer and to die from it than are white or Asian men. The reasons for this are still not known. Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in men in the United States, exceeded only by lung cancer.

Among men diagnosed with prostate cancer, 98% survive at least 5 years, 84% survive at least 10 years, and 56% survive at least 15 years. These figures include all stages and grades of prostate cancer but do not account for men who die from other causes related to prostate cancer.

86% of all prostate cancers are found in the local and regional stages (local means it is still confined to the prostate; regional means it has spread from the prostate to nearby areas, but not to distant sites such as other organs). The 5-year relative survival rate for all of these men is nearly 100%.

Of the roughly 6% of men whose prostate cancers have already spread to distant parts of the body at the time of diagnosis, 34% will survive at least 5 years.

5-year and 10-year survival rates refer to the percentage of men who live at least 5 or 10 years after their prostate cancer is first diagnosed. Relative (also known as disease-specific) survival rates exclude patients dying of other diseases. This means that anyone who died of another cause, such as heart disease, is not counted.

Refer to The American Cancer Society Facts & Figures, MD Anderson and UsToo! International for more information.