About Prostate Cancer
Key facts:
- Prostate cancer is now the most common form of cancer in men in the UK. 26,027 new cases were diagnosed in England alone in 2000.
- It kills 10,000 men in the UK every year.
- Five year survival rates improved from around 42% in the late 1980s to 68% in the late 1990s, due in part to the effects of increased PSA testing and earlier detection.
- Prostate cancer patients report a poorer experience of their care than other cancer patients (National Audit Office, 2004).
- There remains a great deal of variation in prostate cancer services around the country (National Audit Office, 2004).
- Prostate cancer patients are 11% less likely than patients with other cancers to have a named nurse in charge of their care (National Audit Office, 2004).
- 90 % of people are unaware of what the prostate does (ICM, 2005).
- The Prostate Cancer charter for Action has developed a number of calls to address these problems. They can be found here.
- Other key policy documents on prostate cancer can be found here.
- For further information on prostate cancer please refer to UK Prostate Link, the independent gateway to quality-assessed information about prostate cancer.
