Clinical characteristics of prostate cancer in African Americans, American whites, and Senegalese men.
OBJECTIVE
To describe the clinical features of prostate cancer in Senegalese men and compare these features with those found in African-American and white American men.


METHODS
We identified an unselected series of 121 patients with prostate cancer diagnosed at two hospitals in Dakar, Senegal between 1997 and 2002. Medical record abstractions were undertaken to evaluate the prostate tumor characteristics, patient age at diagnosis, prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels, and reason for referral. In addition, these characteristics were compared with a sample of 455 U.S. white men and 60 African-American men with prostate cancer who were studied as part of a prostate cancer case-control study.


RESULTS
Senegalese men had a significantly worse tumor stage than Americans (41.3% versus 18.8%, P <0.001), a significantly worse mean PSA level at diagnosis (mean PSA 72.7 ng/mL versus 9.0 ng/mL in Americans; P <0.001), and were diagnosed at a significantly later age than U.S. men (69 years versus 61 years, P <0.001). U.S. men were most likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer after an elevated PSA test, and Senegalese men were most often diagnosed after presenting for prostate-related symptoms.


CONCLUSIONS
These observations are not unexpected given the differences in the patterns of prostate cancer screening and health care in the United States compared with Senegal. However, our data provide descriptive information about the characteristics of prostate cancer diagnosed in Senegal and highlight differences in the characteristics and detection of these tumors across populations with very different healthcare systems.
Hôpital Général de Grand Yoff and Université Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar, Senegal.
S M
SM
Gueye
C M
CM
Zeigler-Johnson
T
T
Friebel
E
E
Spangler
M
M
Jalloh
S
S
MacBride
S B
SB
Malkowicz
T R
TR
Rebbeck
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D044383:Black People; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009367:Neoplasm Staging / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D017430:Prostate-Specific Antigen / Q000097:blood; D011471:Prostatic Neoplasms / Q000097:blood / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000208:ethnology*; D012675:Senegal / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000208:ethnology; D044465:White People; D001741:Black or African American
D017430:Prostate-Specific Antigen