Lund L.¹, Jacobsen J.², Norgaard M.², Borre M.³, Graversen P.⁴, Larsen E.H.⁵, Sorensen H.T.²

Presented on March, 22 2007

INTRODUCTION & OBJECTIVES: Prostate cancer is the most common noncutaneous cancer among men with a high morbidity and mortality. In general, the prognosis for cancer is less favourable in Denmark than in neighbouring countries. Our aim was to examine possible changes in the survival of patients with prostate cancer in 4 counties in Denmark.

MATERIAL & METHODS: Total 8.928 patients with a discharge diagnosis of prostate cancer (1985 – 2004) from every hospital in four Danish counties (population, 1.6 million) were included. We determined survival and mortality rates stratified by age, and used Cox proportional hazard regression analyses to assess changes over time.

RESULTS: The median age was 75 Years (range 42-93). The overall survival rate improved over time especially between 2001 and 2004. One-year survival increased from 71% to 77%, but there was only improvement in patients younger than 69 years from 35% to 41% in five-year survival. Compared with the period 1985-1989 the age-adjusted one-year mortality rate ratio (MRR) decreased to 0.79 (2000-2004) and the age-adjusted five-year MRR was 0.95 (1995-1999).

CONCLUSIONS: The survival of prostate cancer patients has improved in Denmark within recent years. This survival improvement is probably mainly due to the increasing use of PSA-testing discovering more patients at an earlier stage of the disease and/or with less clinical important tumours.

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