This year alone, nearly 200,000 American men will learn they have prostate cancer. That's one new diagnosis every three minutes. This year, prostate cancer will kill more than 30,000 men, making it the second-leading cause of cancer death. Between 1973 and 1993, the rate of new prostate cancer cases rose by 173 percent, due in part to more widespread use of the PSA blood test, and in part because the population is aging. African-American men have the highest incidence of prostate cancer in the world, as well as the highest mortality rates from the disease.
Asian men have the lowest incidence of prostate cancer.
Prostate cancer risk begins to increase after age 50 for white men who have no family history of the disease, and after age 40 for blacks and those who have close relatives who were diagnosed with the cancer. The American Cancer Society and the American Urological Association recommend annual PSA screening tests and digital rectal exams for all men over age 50, and for all high-risk men beginning at age 40. Based in part on the study's findings, and on other such data, the cancer society is adjusting its recommendations to say that men at high risk for the disease should be screened yearly beginning at age 45. Those at high risk include people who have had close family members diagnosed with prostate cancer, and African-American men. For reasons we don't know, it also starts at a younger age in African-American men.