title: Improving survival in patients with prostate cancer regionally spread at the time of diagnosis.
abstract: In the United States, cancer of the prostate ranks first among malignant neoplasms in elderly men. During the 20-year period 1960-1979, 5178 men with prostate cancer were registered at the Cancer Data Service of the University of Kansas. This study concerns 985 of these men in whom the cancer was regionally spread at the time of diagnosis. Survival differences were examined for four periods, i.e., 1960-1964, 1965-69, 1970-74, and 1975-79. Highly significant increases were observed in one-year and three-year survival (P less than 0.003) between the dosage of estrogen as standard therapy. Another noteworthy finding was that the initial use of radiotherapy (alone or combined) increased from 4.5 per cent in 1960-64 to 36.5 per cent in 1975-79, a period when survival had also increased significantly. In this subset of men with prostatic cancer, survival is approaching that for an age-matched male population as determined by U.S. Life Tables.
mesh_terms: D000206:Actuarial Analysis; D000368:Aged; D006801:Humans; D007615:Kansas; D008297:Male; D009361:Neoplasm Invasiveness; D011471:Prostatic Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality* / Q000473:pathology