Up to half the number of men with prostate cancer who die do so as a direct result of the disease, rather than from other causes according to a new study presented at the National Cancer Intelligence Network conference in London.

Researchers from King's College London looked at 50, 066 men with prostate cancer in the Thames Cancer Registry between 1997 and 2007.

Of this group, 20,181 died during the 10 years. And, of these deaths, 49 per cent were recorded as being due to the cancer itself. According to the study twelve per cent of deaths were caused by other cancers, 17 per cent from heart disease, 8 per cent were from pneumonia and 13 per cent were due to other causes.

Prostate cancer is the second most common cause of cancer death in UK men, after lung cancer. Every year around 37,000 men are diagnosed and over 10,100 men die from the disease.

Professor Henrik Moller, study author from King's College London and head of analysis and research at the NCIN, said: "Our data show that a high proportion of men with prostate cancer die from the cancer."

Simon Chowdhury, study author and consultant oncologist at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, said: "This confirms that prostate cancer is a major cause of morbidity and mortality for a large number of men and the importance of ongoing and future research into this area."

Professor Malcolm Mason, a UK prostate cancer expert, said: "This is an extremely important study, which highlights that prostate cancer is not a trivial disease for large numbers of men in the UK who suffer from it. It is important for specialists, and for healthcare planners to realise that, particularly for men with advanced prostate cancer, their disease poses a significant threat to their health and their life, and the old notion that 'most men die with it, not of it' is simply not true for men with advanced disease.

"However, since 1997, many more men are being diagnosed at a much earlier stage, and for these men the outlook is excellent, even without any treatment. This is why the notion of the 'tiger and the pussycat' is a helpful way of understanding the contradictions. Many of the men in this study had the 'tiger' form of the disease, and a significant number died of it. In Europe today, most men who are diagnosed have the 'pussycat' form, and will have an excellent outlook. There have also been a number of important advances in treatment over this timeframe, so it is possible that not all of the men in this study who died of prostate cancer, would die of it today with modern treatment."


Source: CRUK