Prostate cancer

Prostate cancer

Over 40,000 new cases of prostate cancer are diagnosed every year, making it the second most common cause of cancer death in UK men (after lung cancer).

It usually develops slowly, so there may be no signs you have it for years. Symptoms often only become apparent when your prostate is large enough to affect the urethra (the tube that carries urine from the bladder to the penis). When this happens, you may notice things like an increased need to urinate, straining while urinating and a feeling your bladder has not fully emptied.

In 2010 around 10,700 men died in the UK from prostate cancer, which averages 29 per day. More than 9 in 10 prostate cancer deaths occur in men aged 65 and over. Men with one or more first-degree relatives (father, brother, or son) diagnosed with prostate cancer have an increased risk of prostate cancer, especially if the relative was diagnosed at an early age.

In the 1970s only three in ten men diagnosed with prostate cancer in the UK survived beyond five years. Now more than eight in ten survive. Much of this increase is due to the increased use of PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) testing, which has led to the early diagnosis of many prostate cancers which would have gone undetected.

Statistics from Cancer Research UK.