Prostate cancer deaths expected to fall

Previous research has revealed that men in Yorkshire are more likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer at a late stage - making treatment more difficult and lead to a lower chance of survival.

Analysis by Yorkshire Cancer Research showed that around 47 per cent of Yorkshire patients were diagnosed at stages three and four, compared to 39 per cent overall in England.

However, new research predicts the mortality rate is predicted to decline this year by 7.1 per cent in the EU compared with the 2015 level, with 78,800 men expected to die from the disease in 2020.

The age-adjusted death rate is 9.95 per 100,000 men for this year, compared to 10.71 per 100,000 in 2015.

In the UK, the researchers forecast there will be 11.99 prostate cancer deaths per 100,000 men in 2020, compared to 13.25 per 100,000 in 2015, a drop of 9.5 per cent.

The calculations are based on cancer death certification and population figures from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Eurostat databases for 1970-2015 and have been age-standardised - a technique epidemiologists use to allow populations with different age profiles to be compared.

Poland is the only country where the prostate cancer death rate is rising, with a predicted death toll of 6,100 men by the end of 2020.

Professor Carlo La Vecchia, of the University of Milan’s School of Medicine in Italy, who led the study, said: “Across the EU as a whole, the key message from these prostate cancer death rates is to adopt up-to-date surgery and radiotherapy techniques, together with newer androgen deprivation therapy.

“This may have a relevant impact on prostate cancer mortality even in the absence of cure, since a proportion of elderly men may survive long enough to die from other causes.

“The prostate specific antigen test, PSA, may also play a role, but it is difficult to quantify this at present.”

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men. In the UK, around one in eight men will get the disease in their lifetime. in 2018, Yorkshire Cancer Research said there were more than 30,000 men living with or beyond a prostate cancer diagnosis in the region.

While prostate cancer death rates are falling, the number of men dying from the disease, however, is predicted to increase as the ageing population continues to grow.

In 2015, 74,998 men died from the disease in the EU compared to 78,800 forecast to die in 2020.

And in the UK alone, 11,827 men died in 2015 compared to 12,000 predicted to die from prostate cancer this year.

Commenting on the research, Dr Matthew Hobbs, deputy director of research at Prostate Cancer UK, who was not involved in the analysis, said: “We know that research carried out over the past 20 years has led to improvements in diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer.

“It is great to see that that research has reduced the death rate.

“However, with incidence of prostate cancer rising in the UK, and the number of men reaching an age that increases their risk, combined with faster progress in other diseases, we need much bigger and quicker reductions in the death rate to stop the number of prostate deaths continuing to rise every year.”