Is prostate cancer an important health problem?
The impact of prostate cancer on general health in most Western countries leaves no doubt about its importance as a public health problem. It is the second most common cancer in the Western world (Ferlay, 2001), and causes more deaths than any other cancer in men aged 55-74 (World Health Organisation, 1996). An increase in incidence as well as mortality was seen in most industrialised countries during the 1980s (Hsing, 2000), but the mortality rate became stable during the 1990s (Oliver, 2001). Although quality of life is not profoundly affected for the majority of men with prostate cancer (Sandblom, 2001), it causes a considerable reduction when the cancer reaches an advanced stage, especially if associated with pain from skeletal metastases (Litwin, 2001; Melmed, 2002; Sandblom, 2004a).
