Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer among men in the United States, behind only skin cancer. It is also one of the leading causes of cancer death among men of all races according to the CDC.
Deeper dive
The American Cancer Society estimated that in 2022, nearly 269,000 new cases of prostate cancer will be diagnosed in the United States and about 34,500 men will die from the disease. The lifetime risk of being diagnosed with prostate cancer is approximately 11%, and the lifetime risk of dying of prostate cancer is 2.5%, according to the US Preventive Services Task Force. African American men have an increased lifetime risk of prostate cancer death compared with those of other races/ethnicities (4.2% for African American men, 2.9% for Hispanic men, 2.3% for white men, and 2.1% for Asian and Pacific Islander men), according to USPSTF.
The prostate is a male reproductive organ that produces semen, the liquid medium in which sperm are delivered. This organ is particularly vulnerable to cancer. and despite great advances in detection and treatment, while it kills than 30,000 men annually, more than 3.1 million men in the United States who have been diagnosed with prostate cancer at some point are still alive today.
Prostate tumors can be very slow growing, or they can be very aggressive and deadly, but in either case, they can be insidious, developing to an advanced state without giving themselves away through symptoms. Regular blood tests and physical exams can help spot these cancers early, when they’re more amenable to treatment.
A prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test measures the level of PSA in the blood. PSA is a substance made mostly by the prostate that may be found in an increased amount in the blood of men who have prostate cancer. The level of PSA may also be high in men who have an infection or inflammation of the prostate or benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH; an enlarged, but non-cancerous, prostate). A PSA test or a digital rectal exam may be able to detect prostate cancer at an early stage.
The US Preventive Services Task Force revised its guidelines in 2018 and now recommends against conducting PSA screening in most men. “unless men express a preference for screening after being informed of and understanding the benefits and risks” They concluded that the potential harms of screening, including false-positive results that require additional testing and possible prostate biopsy; overdiagnosis and overtreatment; and treatment complications, such as incontinence and erectile dysfunction outweigh any net benefit of PSA-based screening for prostate cancer in men aged 55 and older.