(ChemotherapyAdvisor) – In the United States, men diagnosed with prostate cancer are more likely to die of causes other than prostate cancer, but that these causes can be prevented by implementing lifestyle changes, according to an international team of researchers. This conclusion is based on a study entitled “Temporal Trends in Cause of Death among Swedish and US Men with Prostate Cancer,” which was published online in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute on July 26.
The authors based the design of this study on the previous observation that a “growing proportion of men diagnosed with localized prostate cancer are dying from causes other than prostate cancer.” In the current study, however, the investigators aimed to identify the specific causes of death among prostate cancer patients. By analyzing causes of death among all incident prostate cancer cases recorded in several databases from Sweden and the US, the investigators calculated the cumulative incidence of death due to 7 selected causes that accounted for more than 80% of the reported deaths.
The investigators reported the following results. During the years of follow-up, prostate cancer accounted for 52% of all reported deaths in Sweden and 30% of reported deaths in the US; however, only 35% of Swedish men and 16% of US men diagnosed with prostate cancer died from this disease. “In both populations, the cumulative incidence of prostate cancer-specific death declined during follow-up, while the cumulative incidences of death from ischemic heart disease and non–prostate cancer remained constant.”
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The investigators concluded that, based on the databases analyzed, men diagnosed with prostate cancer in the US and in Sweden are less likely to die from prostate cancer than from another cause. “Because many of these other causes of death are preventable through changes in lifestyle, interventions that target lifestyle factors should be integrated into prostate cancer management,” they concluded.
