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The term “cancer” refers to a condition in which cells accumulate uncontrollably—the ability to regulate cell growth or death is lost. So instead of dying as they should, prostate cancer cells outlive normal cells and go on to form masses of new, very small abnormal cells known as tumors. (Primary tumors are the original tumors; secondary tumors occur if/when the original cancer spreads to other locations.)

In most cases, prostate cancer is relatively slow-growing, which means that it typically takes a number of years to become large enough to be detectable, and even longer to spread beyond the prostate.

A small percentage of men experience more rapidly growing, aggressive forms of prostate cancer. It’s difficult to know for sure which prostate cancers will grow slowly and which will grow aggressively. This uncertainty can complicate treatment decisions.

Prostate Cancer Is Extremely Common

In fact, it’s the most common non-skin cancer in America, affecting 1 in 6 men.

• More than 2 million American men are currently living with prostate cancer, according to estimates.
• One new case of prostate cancer occurs every 2.4 minutes.
• A non-smoking man is more likely to develop prostate cancer than he is to develop colon, bladder, melanoma, lymphoma, and kidney cancers combined.
• A man is 35% more likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer than a woman is to be diagnosed with breast cancer.

Studies have shown that the majority of men over 70 have some form of prostate cancer. Small prostate cancers seem to start developing during a man’s 30s, and the rate of appearance increases by about 10% per decade of life (50% in 50s, 60% in 60s, etc.)

Calculating Risk

To decide what the risk is for a given prostate cancer, doctors will consider several factors, including:

• The stage of the cancer (how large the cancer is and how far it has spread)
• The grade of the cancer (called the Gleason score—see below)
• The PSA level (including the rate of rise of the PSA)

By categorizing cancers, doctors can provide an estimate of prognosis and success with various treatment options, including little or no treatment. For example, men with low-risk cancers (small volume, early stage, low Gleason, low PSA tumors) have a very high cure rate, in excess of 90%. At this stage, the disease is often curable with standard interventions, such as surgery or radiation therapy that aims to remove or kill all cancerous cells.

The Gleason Score

The Gleason score remains one of the best methods for determining the aggressiveness of prostate cancer. It’s actually a sum of two scores—each ranging between 1 and 5—provided by a pathologist who examines the cancer under the microscope.

The pathologist will take the most common cancer that is found and add that score to the next most common score. Occasionally, a third score is reported if the most aggressive tumor takes up only a small part of the prostate.

A Gleason sum ranges from 2-10: 2 being basically like a normal prostate, and 10 looking extremely aggressive. Most men will have a Gleason sum of 6-7 at diagnosis.

Stages of Cancer

The stage of a cancer is based on how large the cancer is and how much it has spread. Stages are typically expressed as a T score, N score, and M score.

• The T score can range from 1-4, depending on whether the cancer is very tiny and picked up only by PSA testing or whether it is invading other organs.
• The N score is 0-1, depending on whether the cancer has spread to lymph nodes (parts of the body that usually process waste and infections).
• The M score is 0-1, depending on whether the cancer has spread outside the prostate to other parts of the body, such as bones or lungs.

It is also important to know how much cancer (in area or volume) was found (either on a biopsy or after the prostate is removed). This information can help guide how aggressively any further therapy should be considered.

Metastatic Prostate Cancer

If untreated and allowed to grow, cells from cancerous tumors can spread in a process called metastasis. During metastasis, prostate cancer cells are transported through the lymphatic system and the bloodstream to other parts of the body, where they lodge and grow secondary tumors.

The spread of cancer can be detected by the presence of prostate cancer cells in areas surrounding the prostate, such as the seminal vesicle, the capsule that surrounds the prostate, the lymph nodes in the groin area, the rectum, and bones.

When the disease spreads to other sites, it is still considered prostate cancer. It is no longer curable, but remains highly treatable.

How Curable Is Prostate Cancer?

As with all cancers, “cure” rates for prostate cancer describe the percentage of patients remaining disease-free for a specific time. In general, the earlier the cancer is caught, the more likely it is for the patient to remain disease-free.

Approximately 90% of all prostate cancers are detected in the local and regional stages, so the cure rate is very high: Nearly 100% of men diagnosed and treated at this stage will be disease-free after five years.

However, prostate cancer is still a highly fatal disease. A man with prostate cancer has a 1 in 6 – 8 chance of dying from the disease, and nearly 88 American men die from it every day.

Because prostate cancer is so common, just finding the disease does not necessarily mean that a man needs to be “cured.” Many men are walking around now with prostate cancer and do not know it, and it may never become a problem for them.

Current studies are looking at men with very small low-risk tumors to decide if immediate aggressive therapy is needed at all, or if a man can be safely observed without immediate treatment (and side effects) while still preserving his chance of a long-term cure and survival free of disease.

There are also extensive, ongoing efforts to develop urine or blood tests that can accurately tell the difference between cancers that are most likely to become fatal and ones that sit in the prostate without growing or spreading. A PSA test does this modestly, but better tests are needed to prevent over-detection.

In any case, being diagnosed with prostate cancer can be a life-altering experience. It requires men to make some very difficult decisions about treatments that can affect their lives and the lives of family members in significant ways for many years to come.

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