Private MD News

Older men more affected by prostate cancer than previously thought

Category: Prostate

While older men are still encouraged to seek PSA testing, many experts say that individuals over age 75 are unlikely to be diagnosed with a potentially life-threatening tumor. However, new evidence suggests that this is not the case.

Prostate cancer is widely considered to be of little concern to older men because it is a slow moving disease. The thinking goes that seniors diagnosed with prostate cancer will likely die of some other cause before the tumor has a chance to affect them.

However, after examining nearly 500,000 men's medical records, a team of researchers from the University of Rochester found that individuals over the age of 75 receive 48 percent of all diagnoses of metastatic prostate cancer and account for 53 percent of all prostate cancer deaths.

"We hope our study will raise awareness of the fact that older men are actually dying at high rates from prostate cancer," said lead researcher Guan Wu. "With an aging population it is important to understand this, as doctors and patients will be embarking on more discussions about the pros and cons of treatment."