Have prostate cancer survival rates changed?
According to the epidemiological data, survival rates have indeed increased over time based on 5-year survival data from the time of diagnosis. What is not yet clear is whether this apparent increase in the survival rates is a real increase. We are clearly diagnosing prostate cancer earlier in the course of the disease. As a consequence, we know that prostate cancer patients must be living for a longer time with the knowledge that they have prostate cancer. Does that mean that we have increased their survival time? No, it does not. All that means is that we have increased the time that they are living with a diagnosis of prostate cancer. On the other hand, there have been several major advances in our ability to treat patients with prostate cancer, and some of these have been clearly associated with increases in disease- free survival, cancer-specific survival, and overall survival in very carefully controlled clinical trials involving hundreds of patients.
According to the epidemiological data, survival rates have indeed increased over time based on 5-year survival data from the time of diagnosis. What is not yet clear is whether this apparent increase in the survival rates is a real increase. We are clearly diagnosing prostate cancer earlier in the course of the disease. As a consequence, we know that prostate cancer patients must be living for a longer time with the knowledge that they have prostate cancer. Does that mean that we have increased their survival time? No, it does not. All that means is that we have increased the time that they are living with a diagnosis of prostate cancer. On the other hand, there have been several major advances in our ability to treat patients with prostate cancer, and some of these have been clearly associated with increases in disease- free survival, cancer-specific survival, and overall survival in very carefully controlled clinical trials involving hundreds of patients. The likelihood is that the a
