Prostate Cancer Facts and Statistics

Diagnosis and Mortality Rates

Prostate cancer is diagnosed every two minutes and fifteen seconds, and over 186,320 new cases are expected in 2008. It is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in America among men.
An estimated 28,660 American men will lose their lives to prostate cancer in 2008, up 3 percent from 2007.
Prostate cancer takes about one life every 18 minutes.
One in six American men is at lifetime risk of prostate cancer.
If a close relative has prostate cancer, a man's risk of the disease more than doubles. With two relatives, his risk increases five times. With three close relatives, his risk is about 97 percent.
In the next 24 hours, prostate cancer will claim the lives of 83 American men.
Prostate cancer represents 33 percent of all new cancer cases in American men. That's more new cases than any other cancer.

Prostate Cancer Statistics - State by State Figures

Survival Rates

Almost 100 percent of men diagnosed with prostate cancer are still alive in five years*.
Over 90 percent of prostate cancer cases are found while the cancer is still either local or regional, and nearly 100 percent of these men are still alive five years after being diagnosed.
In cases where the cancer has spread to distant parts of the body, 34 percent survive five years.
After 10 years, about 97.9 percent of men diagnosed with early stage prostate cancer are still alive*, but only 17.6 percent of those diagnosed with advanced stage prostate cancer survive 10 years*.
*not including those who died from other causes.

National Cancer Institute (NCI): Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program - Fast Stats: Prostate Cancer