The American Cancer Society has released its revised statistical projections for prostate cancer diagnoses and deaths in the United States for the upcoming year of 2008. The projection calls for 186,320 men to be diagnosed and 28,660 to die from the disease. These numbers do not take into account the many men who die from other issues such as coronary failure, which was prompted by prostate cancer.
This is the first time in many years that the ACS forecasts include an increase in the number of deaths and at the same time, it projects a small decrease in the number of men who will be diagnosed. In 2007 the forecasted number of deaths was 27,050 (as opposed to 2008 with a projection of 28,660) and newly diagnosed was 218,890 ( as opposed to 186,320 in 2008). The differences are a 6% increase in deaths and a 14.8% decrease in diagnosis!
There has been a recent and insidious underlying campaign in recent years to discourage wide spread screening of men for prostate cancer. Could these new projections be a result of this campaign’s success? If this is the case then we can look forward to constant increases in the number of us who will die from prostate cancer.
The other new twist we have to recognize is the American Cancer Society’s has adap