Prostate Cancer Facts

• Prostate cancer is second only to skin cancer as the most common cancer affecting men. According to the American Cancer Society, one in six men in the U.S. will get the disease in his lifetime, although only one in 34 will die of it.
• The American Cancer Society estimates that roughly 232,090 new cases of prostate cancer will be detected in American men in 2005. About 30,350 men in the U.S. will die of the disease in 2005.
• Prostate cancer usually grows so slowly that many older men with the disease will die of other causes before their disease is even discovered. But prostate cancer can also grow quickly and spread.
• Medical science has no certain way to know which cancers will grow slowly and which will grow quickly and threaten a man’s life. So it is important that the cancer be detected and treated in an early stage.
• The U.S. death rate for prostate cancer is going down, probably because of more effective screening methods such as regular prostate specific antigen (PSA) tests.
• The prostate is a walnut-sized gland found only in men. It is located in front of the rectum, just below the bladder. The prostate makes some of the seminal fluid that nourishes and transports sperm. The urethra, which is the tube that transports urine, passes through the prostate. In older men, the part of the prostate around the urethra often continues to grow. This can cause benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), a non-cancerous condition that can create problems with urination.