Who Gets Prostate Cancer?

An estimated 1 in 6 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their lifetimes, but advances in treatment mean only 1 in 35 will die of the disease, according to the American Cancer Society. Treatment is most effective when prostate cancer is diagnosed early, before it spreads to other parts of the body.

The risk of prostate cancer increases dramatically as men age. It affects only 1 in 10,000 men younger than forty, but 1 in 14 men in their sixties. A number of factors can increase risk:

• African American men are 61 percent more likely than white men to develop
  prostate cancer.
• Men are twice as likely to develop prostate cancer if their father or a brother or son has had the disease.
• If more than two first-degree relatives have had prostate cancer, the risk
  increases fourfold.
• Men are at even higher risk if a relative was diagnosed with the disease before age 60.