Thus, approximately one in 9 men will present a clinical form of this disease during his lifetime. In reality, this cancer rarely appears before the age of 40-50 and most cases are seen between the ages of 60 and 90. Prostate cancer numbers.?
These variations in the frequency of this cancer as a function of age are important to take into account because they influence diagnostic and therapeutic management. As the evolution of prostate cancer is often long even in the absence of treatment and as many of these tumors can remain silent throughout life, the management strategies proposed must in fact be modulated according to life expectancy. sick people. Which is of course not identical to 60 or 90 years. Autopsy data reveal that 20% of prostates have cancerous lesions at age 45 and more than 70 to 80% at age 80.
Increasing in Western countries
A very significant increase in new cases of prostate cancer has been noted in recent years in Western countries. The number of cases is said to have practically doubled in the United States over the past five years. It seems that this boom is not unrelated to advances in screening. The use of blood markers such as prostate-specific antigen or PSA makes it possible to identify early or small-volume cancers that would previously have gone unnoticed.
Prostate cancer also does not have the same frequency in all countries.There is an increase in the number of these cancers among immigrants of Asian origin living in the United States compared to the figures among their compatriots who remained in their country of origin. This observation suggests that environmental factors could come into play in the appearance of this tumour, some of which may be linked to diet. Exposure to toxic substances or sexual habits could also influence its occurrence.
But, genetic factors are also involved, because this cancer is two to three times more common in first-degree relatives of affected men.
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In France, prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in men (11% of cancer deaths) behind lung cancer and ahead of colon and rectum cancer. Beyond the age of 70, it is the leading cause of death from cancer.
However, this tumor has benefited from significant therapeutic progress and only one third of men with a clinical form of prostate cancer will die from it.
In certain countries of North America, where the dosage of the prostatic marker PSA for diagnostic purposes is widely used, mortality attributable to this cancer has recently decreased. It would thus have decreased by 23% in Quebec compared to the beginning of the 1990s.