Statistics About Prostate Cancer

Some people use statistical reports to try to figure out their chance of getting cancer. Or they use them to try to figure out their chance of being cured. Statistics show what happens with large groups of people. Because no two people are alike, statistics can’t be used to know or predict what will happen to a particular person.

These are some 2007 statistics about prostate cancer. They came from the American Cancer Society’s booklet Cancer Facts & Figures.

• African American men and Jamaican men of African descent are the most likely to get prostate cancer. They’re also more likely to die of it. The reasons for this are still not known.

• Men who get prostate cancer whose father or brother also had it make up 5% to 10% of cases. Those numbers are higher for men who have more than one relative with it. This is especially true if those relatives were diagnosed when they were young.

• More than 215,000 men will get prostate cancer in the United States this year. More than 70% of these men will be age 65 or older.

• Of all the men diagnosed with prostate cancer, 99% survive at least 5 years, 93% survive at least 10 years, and 77% survive at least 15 years. These figures include all stages and grades of prostate cancer, no matter what the treatment was. They do not account for men who die of other causes.

• Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in men in the United States after lung cancer.