Who has it?

Epidemiology: Who gets Prostate Cancer anyway?

       When we are researching a disease, one of the first things I wanted to know besides how likely you are to get it is.. how many other people have it?  How many people die from it?  Is it worse in the United States.. is it worse in my state?


First.. some definitions:

Incidence: number of new cases per year
Mortality: number of deaths per year

And some graphs:

How the US compares to other countries when it comes to incidence of prostate cancer:

from CDC website 2011

In words:

•  The incidence rate for the United States is 128.3, that is out of 100,000 males, 128 of them have prostate cancer in 2011

Incidence rates are highest...

       in the Northeast U.S. Census region (144.3), followed by the Midwest (130.0) and South (124.7)

•  The death rate for the United States is 20.8, that is out of 100,000 males, 20 died from prostate cancer in 2011.

Death rates are highest...

       in the South U.S. Census region (21.0), followed by the Midwest (20.9), West (20.7), 

                      and Northeast (20.3)

Incidence by Race in the US: 

from CDC in 2011

What we can see from this graph:

Incidence of prostate cancer is higher in Black Americans than other races


BUT some positives... 

   from 1999-2010..

incidence in black men with prostate cancer decreased by 3.8% and all men by 3.4%!




A few other graphs to show how Prostate Cancer compares to Other Cancers



Incidence among men: #1

from CDC statistics, 2011

Mortality rate from cancer among men: #2

from CDC statistics 2011

Perhaps the most important statistics are the following on how prostate cancer incidence increases with age...

● 20 to 30 years, 2 to 8 percent of men with occult cancer

● 31 to 40 years, 9 to 31 percent

● 41 to 50 years, 3 to 43 percent

● 51 to 60 years, 5 to 46 percent

● 61 to 70 years, 14 to 70 percent

● 71 to 80 years, 31 to 83 percent

● 81 to 90 years, 40 to 73 percent

From these statistics we can see that in the US Prostate Cancer is a problem of all ages and we need to focus on educating the male population about screenings especially in their retirement years!