[Epidemiology and clinical features of prostate cancer in Japan]

The incidence rate of clinically manifest prostate cancer in 1992 was estimated 15.7 per 100,000 men, although it is increasing exponentially. Accordingly, 5399 deaths from prostate cancer in 1995 will be increased to 13,494 deaths in 2015. Change in dietary habit (more Western-style diet) is considered to be a major cause of the increase. Escalating number of elderly people in the Japanese population is another major reason of elevated incidence. On the other, public awareness of prostate cancer and introduction of serum PSA measurement to health check-up undoubtedly have raised the detection rate of early stage disease. The way of androgen ablation do not seem to have influenced on survival of the advanced disease so far. It remains to be clarified whether the combined androgen blockade using pure anti-androgens with castration provide better patients' survival than castration alone.