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Prostate cancer is very common. It's the most common cancer among men in the United States.

The latest figures show that more than 186,000 men find out they have prostate cancer each year. Most of these men are over 65 years old and their disease has not spread beyond the prostate to other parts of their body.¹

Here are some more facts and figures about men with prostate cancer.

• Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of death from cancer among men in the United States, after lung cancer. Researchers think that this year nearly 29,000 men will die of the disease.¹
• But many more men survive prostate cancer than die of it. In the United States, around 1 man in 6 will be diagnosed with the disease. But only 1 in 35 will die of it.²
• Although you can get prostate cancer at any age, you are far more likely to get it as you get older. About 70 percent of men with prostate cancer are age 65 or older. Other health problems sometimes found in older men, such as heart disease, are more likely to cause symptoms and lead to their death than their prostate cancer is. Reports from autopsies (examinations of the body after death) have shown that around 60 percent of men in their 80s have prostate cancer, but most die with the disease rather than from it.³
• Black American men are 60 percent more likely to get prostate cancer than white American men. Black men are also more than twice as likely as white men to die from the disease. American Indian and Asian men have the lowest rates of prostate cancer.⁴ Researchers are not sure why this is. It may be because of differences in diet between the different groups, or because of different genes (the material found in all cells that tells them how to grow and behave). Black men living in Africa or Asia have lower rates of the disease than black men living in the United States do.
• Most men are diagnosed at an early stage of the disease. This is because new tests are good at detecting the disease early on.⁵ About 80 percent of men diagnosed with prostate cancer have a tumor that has probably not spread.⁵
• You are more likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer today than 20 years ago, but you may be slightly less likely to die from it. The number of men diagnosed with prostate cancer more than doubled in the mid-1980s through early 1990s. This isn't because twice as many men had the disease, but because more men took a test to find out.¹ The number of men dying from the disease has been falling since the early 1990s.⁴ Doctors don't know the reason for this yet.

Your doctor will not be able to tell you why you have cancer. For most men, no cause can be found. Instead, your doctor may talk about risk factors: things that make it more likely that certain men will develop the disease. The most well-known risk factors are:

• Being older
• Having a family history of the disease
• Being black.

Diet and lifestyle also may affect your risk, but researchers do not know enough about this to be sure.

To find out more, see Risk factors for prostate cancer.

This information is for educational use only, and is not a substitute for prompt professional medical advice. Readers should always consult a physician or other professional for advice and treatment. ©BMJ Publishing Group Limited 2008. All rights reserved.