Prostate cancer has fallen from the second to the third-leading cause of cancer deaths among men, which is encouraging news to specialists at the University of Iowa who treat the disease. Dr. Richard Williams, a professor and head of the U-of-I’s urology department, says it appears they’re making slow but steady progress in finding and fighting prostate cancer. Dr. Williams says it’s a sign screening is improving the death rate because by finding the cancer early, it’s being treated earlier before it spreads. Lung cancer is the number-one cancer killer of American men while prostate cancer has fallen to third behind colon cancer. Williams says national numbers show about 234,000 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer this year, with some 27,000 expected to die from it — down from 30,000 last year. The incidence hasn’t changed, basically 33-percent of all adult cancers, but the death rate has gone from ten-percent to nine-percent which may not sound like a lot, but Williams says that’s 3000 men who won’t die from prostate cancer this year. He says all men over 50 need to have regular prostate cancer screenings while black men or those with family histories of prostate cancer need to be checked more frequently, starting at 45, as they are up to three-times more likely to be at risk. Williams says they’re zeroing in on what causes prostate cancer. He says high-fat diets may be to blame as Asian nations with low-fat diets have a very low rate of prostate cancer while men in nations with high-fat diets have a much higher rate. In the U.S., he says the death rate of prostate cancer has fallen about four-percent in the past six years.
