Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men in the UK.^[11]

The number of men with prostate cancer has been rising steadily for the last 30 years. Doctors think this may be partly because men are living longer (prostate cancer tends to affect older men) and because of better diagnosis.^[11]

The latest figures show that more than 36,000 men find out they have prostate cancer each year. More than half of prostate cancers are diagnosed in men over age 70.^[12][13]

Here are some more facts and figures about men with prostate cancer.

• Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of death from cancer among men in the UK, after lung cancer. It kills around 10,000 men each year.^[11][13]

• But many more men survive prostate cancer than die of it. Today, more than 3 out of 4 men survive beyond five years, whereas in the 1970s, only 1 in 3 men did.^[11]

• Other health problems sometimes found in older men, such as heart disease, are more likely to cause symptoms and lead to their death than their prostate cancer. Reports from autopsies (examinations of the body after death) have shown that around 60 percent of men in their 80s have prostate cancer, but most die from other causes.^[14]

• More men are being diagnosed at an early stage of the disease than before.^[15]

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