Who has prostate cancer? What are the trends?

This week I am going to talk about a big fancy word called the "epidemiology" of prostate cancer in the US. This just means I am going to look at where prostate cancer is and which groups of people are most likely to have it. I am using the National Cancer Institute's website primarily as my source of information as well as the CDC.

How many men get it? How many die from it each year?

Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers among men, and 1 in 7 will be diagnosed with it (hence the title of my blog, "1 in 7"). However, if caught early, prostate cancer has high treatment success (Cancer Treatment Centers of America 2015).

According to the National Cancer Institute, last year (2014) there were around 233,000 new cases of prostate cancer reported (note how I say reported. There still might be many more people with it who have not been diagnosed or who were missed/not accounted for in the statistics). There were 29,480 estimated deaths from prostate cancer. Additionally, if we look at trends over time (the latest data availble for trends is from 1992-2011), we see that new prostate cancer diagnoses are going down, and the amount of deaths from it are lower than the amount of people newly found to have it.

National Cancer Institute. SEER Fact Sheets: Prostate Cancer:"At a Glance." Retrieved from http://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/prost.html

Prostate cancer is slow-growing and men with it will often not die from it. They will often die from another cause instead of prostate cancer. Thus, there are high numbers of new cases but much fewer deaths from it. It often does not spread to other parts of the body, but when it does, we see higher  mortality rates. Here is a graph that shows the percentage of people who are expected to still be alive 5 years after their stage of diagnosis (it does not mean they are expected to live only 5 years):

National Cancer Institute. SEER Fact Sheets: Prostate Cancer:"Survival By Stage." Retrieved from http://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/prost.html

How old are most people who have it?

Prostate cancer is a cancer of men, and risk increases with age. Most of the new diagnoses are made in men ages 65-75. Here is some food for thought about reporting diagnoses: people can only be diagnosed if they are screened for prostate cancer in the first place, so there might be more men with prostate cancer than we are aware of because they have not been screened.

National Cancer Institute. SEER Fact Sheets: Prostate Cancer: "Who Gets This Cancer?" Retrieved from http://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/prost.html

Who is at the highest risk?

Also according to the national cancer institute, African American men as well as men whose fathers have or had prostate cancer are at the greatest risk (family history plays a role). Here is a graph that looks at risk by race. It looks at the number of newly diagnosed people per every 100,000 in the population. So, for example, if we look at men of Asian/Pacific Island descent in the United States, for every 100,000 of this subpopulation, 79.3 will be newly diagnosed with prostate cancer each year. They got this data from compiling data from 2007-2011.

National Cancer Institute. SEER Fact Sheets: Prostate Cancer: "Who Gets This Cancer?" Retrieved from http://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/prost.html

What does the distribution look like in the United States?

This graph by the CDC looks at the percentage range of men who were newly diagnosed with prostate cancer in each state in 2011 (the most recent state-comparing data I found)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2011. Rates of Getting Prostate Cancer By State. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/prostate/statistics/state.htm.

What are some of the burdens of prostate cancer?

Economic: Cancer treatment is expensive, and prostate cancer treatment is no exception. Costs involved include screening, treatment, follow-up doctor's appointments, possible hospitalization, medication, etc. I am going to try and find more recent data than this, but am having difficulty. So for now, according to Pfizer (2005), the average yearly health care spending per person with prostate cancer (directly related to the prostate cancer) was about $3500 and the cost of comorbidities was about $8500 (Pfizer 2005). I feel like this cost would be higher than this today, however, so I will update this when I find better information. The total cost in the US for prostate cancer and comorbidity spending was nearly $13 billion.

Personal: If a person decides to undergo treatment, there will be costs involved besides the treatment itself and consultations such as transportation, a person might have to take time off of work depending on their specific situation, or the treatment of other problems that may arise such as depression or pain can cost money as well.

Emotional: Anyone diagnosed with a chronic disease will likely be at a greater risk for depression or grief. There may be adjustments in their lives emotionally, physically, and within their family and friendships.

Sources:

Cancer Treatment Centers of America (2015). "Prostate Cancer Information." Retrieved from http://www.cancercenter.com/prostate-cancer/learning/.

Centers for Disease and Control Prevention (2014). "Prostate cancer rates by state." Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/prostate/statistics/state.htm.

The National Cancer Institute Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program."Seer Stat Fact Sheets: Prostate Cancer." Retrieved from http://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/prost.html