As the cancer is diagnosed, prostate cancer is commonly less serious. Prostate cancer often grows slowly and is slow to spread. For many men, prostate cancer is less serious than their other medical conditions.
For these reasons, and possibly due to earlier detection of low-grade prostate cancer, prostate cancer has one among the best survival rates of any kind of cancer. WebMD takes a take a look at prostate cancer survival rates and what they mean for you.
After skin cancer, prostate cancer is essentially the most common cancer in men. About 1 in 7 men can be diagnosed with prostate cancer of their lifetime. And it's only men who're diagnosed. Among very old men who die from other causes, a staggering two-thirds could have prostate cancer that isn't diagnosed.
Only 1 in 36 men, though, actually die from prostate cancer. This is because most prostate cancers are diagnosed in older men, in whom the disease is more prone to grow slowly and be non-aggressive. The majority of those men eventually die of heart disease, stroke, or other causes — not their prostate cancer.
Thinking about survival rates for prostate cancer takes a little bit of mental stress. Keep in mind that the majority men are around 70 when diagnosed with prostate cancer. Within five years, lots of these men will die from other medical problems related to prostate cancer.
To determine prostate cancer survival rates, these men are subtracted from the calculation. Counting only the boys who've survived provides what is named the relative survival rate for prostate cancer.
With this in mind, the relative survival rate for many sorts of prostate cancer is definitely excellent. Remember, we're not counting men with prostate cancer who die from other causes:
- 92% of all prostate cancers are detected after they are in an early stage, generally known as local or regional. Almost 100% of men with localized or regional prostate cancer will survive greater than five years after diagnosis.
- Very few men (about 7%) have more advanced prostate cancer on the time of diagnosis. Once prostate cancer has spread beyond the prostate, survival rates drop. For men with distant spread (metastases) of prostate cancer, about one-third will survive five years after diagnosis.
Many men with prostate cancer will actually live greater than five years after diagnosis. What about long-term survival rates? According to the American Society of Clinical Oncology, for men with localized or regional prostate cancer:
- The relative 10-year survival rate is 98%
- The relative 15-year survival rate is 95%
As with all cancers, doctors use this term. Step To describe the characteristics of the first tumor, corresponding to its size and the way far the prostate cancer has spread when it's found.
Staging systems are complex. The staging system for many cancers, including prostate cancer, uses three different features of tumor growth and spread. This is named the TNM system. Tumors, nodes, And Metastasis:
- T, for tumor (which stands for swelling, growth or mass, and describes the cancer as found at its original site) describes the dimensions of the central a part of the prostate cancer.
- N, for nodes, indicates whether the prostate cancer has spread to any lymph nodes, and what number of and to which locations.
- M, for metastasis, means the spread of prostate cancer, for instance, to the bones or liver.
Using the TNM system, each man's prostate cancer could be described intimately and in comparison with other men's prostate cancers. Doctors use this information to make decisions about studies and coverings.
As for prostate cancer survival rates, nevertheless, the staging system may be very easy. As we mentioned, depending on the survival rate, men with prostate cancer could be divided into two groups:
- Men with prostate cancer that's localized to or near the prostate.. These men have the next long-term survival rate for prostate cancer. Almost all will survive their prostate cancer for five years — and for a lot of men, even longer.
- Men whose prostate cancer has spread to distant sites corresponding to their bones.. These men might have more aggressive treatment for his or her prostate cancer. About 34% will survive their prostate cancer for greater than five years.