The Majority Of Asian Men Demonstrate A Greater Ability To Survive Prostate Cancer than White Men

Next to skin cancer, prostate cancer is the most frequently seen type of cancer in American men and it is predicted that nearly 219,000 men in the US will be diagnosed as having prostate cancer in 2007 and that about 27,000 men will die from the disease.

However, as is the case with many conditions, prostate cancer survival rates are not the same across the world and this fact should provide us with data which will enable us to improve our treatment methods.

In a recent study data was examined on nearly 117,000 men diagnosed with prostate cancer (including approximately 108,000 white men and nearly 9,000 Asians drawn from the six largest Asian ethnicities - , South Asian, Japanese, Filipino, Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese). The study looked at prognostic factors and survival rates for these men.

Amongst the various findings of the study it was discovered that the risk profile for Asians was worse than that for whites, with Asian men being more likely to have advanced cases of the disease at the time of diagnosis and of receiving treatment with a variety of non-curative therapies. However, the study also showed that the survival rates for Asian men were either the same as or better than the rates seen in white men.

These study results were especially surprising when we consider that the age at which most Asian men are diagnosed as having prostate cancer is far higher than that for white men and that their cancers are frequently further advanced, which ought to indicate a reduced survival rate.

When the data was studied in greater detail however it was found that there was a marked variation between different groups of Asian men. As an example, Japanese-American men were one-third less likely to die as a result of prostate cancer, while men from South Asia (including, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan) were forty percent more likely to die from prostate cancer.

So just what does this mean? Unfortunately the answer would appear to be very little. These differences are clearly big enough to be significant, however the wide variation between many broadly similar groups makes it impossible to draw any concrete conclusions. Without doubt there are a number of things, such as exercise, diet and genetics, which are a factor but many of the findings appear to be almost contradictory.

The result is that, a study which it was hoped would point to differences across ethic groups which would permit us to improve our treatment options has in fact produced more questions that it has answered. In truth, apart from pointing to the dangers of drawing conclusions from too large a group, as seen in the difference in the figures for Asian men in general and South Asian men, the study has shown that the differences were larger than most people had believed and thus suggest that the differences might indeed be more significant than previously believed.

At the end of the day, this study does not take us any further forward however has highlighted the need for more investigation which will hopefully provide us with better data and permit us to take advantage of the better survival rates in many Asian men in designing treatment plans for prostate cancer.

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