[relium]

About 40 years ago my father, an oncologist, told me there were two common types of prostate cancer, the fast growing type that kills you and the slow growing type that doesn't. We've learned a lot about it since then, but that description is still essentially true.

It causes 30,000 deaths a year in the US, which is not insignificant - in comparison breast cancer kills 40,000.

[abalone]

Yes, the absolute number of deaths is significant. There is a debate within the medical community over whether the slower growing type should be relabeled as not-cancer / pre-cancer, etc., as surveillance is the more typical treatment plan these days. This in turn will increase the death rate percentage of the remaining (fast growing) cases.

Also worth mentioning that it's not just about surviving it, there's also quality of life. The earlier you catch it the better the outcome.

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

Does the slow growing type cause any quality of life loss?

[abalone]

If it doesn't escape the prostate, a tumor could potentially impinge on the urethra causing urinary difficulty. There is a benign version of this called BPH and it may be treatable by medications like Flowmax.

But it's not like we can always know it will stay slow growing forever. Some cancers can suddenly become aggressive and metastasize, so careful monitoring is important.

[ein0p]

Plus a large percentage of men (like 1 in 8 in the US) eventually get it, it’s just that men often keel over before that happens. If men live longer, percentage will naturally increase

[AwaAwa]

IIRC there was also some news a while back (pre-covid era) on the massive funding discrepancy between research into the two. Hopefully not the case any more.