Prostate Cancer
Prostate cancer is the most common nonskin cancer in men in North America and Europe. Three important risk factors for this disease are advanced age, race, and family history. In the United States and other high-resource countries, widespread testing for prostate-specific antigen (PSA) has increased the number of men diagnosed with localized disease. Treatment options for localized disease include observation, active surveillance, radiation therapy, and radical prostatectomy, with each option providing a 5-year survival of nearly 100%. Men with regional disease can also be managed with radiation and androgen deprivation therapy, with an excellent 5-year survival. Only 7% of men in the United States present with metastatic disease, commonly to bone, but some who present initially with localized or regional disease will progress to metastatic disease. Metastatic disease is highly treatable, with major improvements in survival and quality of life, but remains incurable.
