PROSTATE CANCER: THE SAD STATISTIC
So even in the men who haven’t died of prostate cancer (yet) this statistic,( 13 percent of these men had died from the cancer) almost becomes a technicality. Certainly their lives aren’t the same as those of men without prostate cancer. It’s hard to enjoy old age when prostate cancer’s symptoms begin to affect your quality of life. Incredibly, one of these men who “demonstrated no evidence of disease progression before death” turned out, an autopsy revealed, to have died of prostate cancer. How could this be? Men with end-stage prostate cancer don’t usually drop dead without warning. They suffer, as do their loved ones who watch this happen. They become increasingly frail as the cancer eats away their bones. Life ebbs away over a period of time that seems at once fleeting and yet agonizingly slow. How, then, could someone die of this cancer and be classified as being without symptoms? This astounding statistic suggests that men in the Swedish health care system were not carefully watched and that the progression rates are probably higher than the 50 percent these investigators quoted. (It also sheds unsavory light on another statistic: Some of the most strenuous objections to aggressive treatment for prostate cancer have come from doctors in Sweden, where definitive treatment for this disease is not widespread. And—this comes as news to many—Sweden has the highest death rate from prostate cancer in the world!
These statistics are particularly distressing to think about when you consider this: Today, when localized prostate cancer is diagnosed in men who have a lifespan longer than ten years, the decision not to offer these men potentially curable therapy may be a death sentence. Because in most patients, the disease is going to progress.
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