Black men twice as likely to die from prostate cancer compared to white men

the Oncology Nurse Advisor take:

Black men are twice as likely to be diagnosed with, or die from, prostate cancer in their lifetime compared to white men, according to an English population study published in BMC Medicine.

Additionally, Asian men are half as likely to be diagnosed, or die from, prostate cancer in their lifetime compared to white men.

Researchers led by Alison Cooper of Prostate Cancer UK and Public Health England studied prostate cancer incidence and mortality data in England from 2008 to 2010 from a variety of sources, including Public Health England and the Office for National Statistics. In total, their sample size included 25,635,649 men, with 102,252 prostate cancer diagnoses and 26,521 deaths as a result of prostate cancer.

They found that lifetime risk of being diagnosed with prostate cancer in England was about 1 in 8 (13.3 percent) for white men, 1 in 4 (29.3 percent) for black men, and 1 in 13 (7.9 percent) for Asian men.

Risk of dying from prostate cancer in England was found to be about 1 in 24 (4.2 percent) in white men, 1 in 12 (8.7 percent) in black men, and 1 in 44 (2.3 percent) in Asian men.

Independent of ethnicity, white, black and Asian men with prostate cancer diagnosis were found to have a one third chance of dying from the disease.

Further work is needed to understand the mechanisms for the higher risk found in black men.