Dissemination of prostatic carcinoma: an autopsy study

Autopsy protocols at Howard University Hospital (HUH), Washington, DC, for the period of 1930 to 1985 were reviewed. The patient population of the hospital is predominantly black. Necropsy cases with adenocarcinoma of the prostate were tabulated according to the presence or absence of metastasis and the site of the metastatic lesion. A comparison was made with a similar racially unselected (predominantly white) series (Massachusetts General Hospital).The most commonly involved organs by secondary carcinoma of the prostate were, in descending order of frequency, lymph nodes, bones, bladder, lung, liver, and kidneys. In comparison with the MGH unselected series, the distribution of metastatic sites was significantly different (P < .0001). In the HUH series, kidney and adrenal gland metastases were more common than in the control series. The seminal vesicles were more frequently involved in the MGH series. In the HUH series, 76 percent of bone metastases occurred in the vertebrae, while the comparable figure for the MGH series was 40 percent.