WESTON, Fla. – According to the American Cancer Society, nearly 3 million men in the U.S. will be diagnosed with prostate cancer this year and nearly 35,000 will die from the disease when it metastasizes, spreading to other areas of the body.
“The five-year survival rate is 98 percent or higher, in general, because most are diagnosed in early stage, but around 20 percent of prostate cancer will develop at some point. Usually 7 years later from diagnosis, they will develop metastatic disease,” said Dr. Rafael Arteta, a hematologist-oncologist with Cleveland Clinic Weston.
Arteta said men in that 20 percentile may have tumors that behave differently based on genetic mutations.
“We discovered now that in early stage prostate cancer, around 7 percent, carry germline mutations. The patients are born with those mutations and predisposed to cancer and patients that carry those mutations, those germline mutations, the cancer can behave more aggressively,” he said.
There are also mutations that can develop over time.
That’s why the American Cancer Society recommends genetic testing for all patients with metastatic or high risk localized disease, as well as those with a family history of cancer.
The results can help direct the treatment of their disease, and lead to testing of family members who might carry the same mutations and benefit from early cancer screening.
“We see a significant number of patients that carry a mutation and we can explore deeper in the family, and we’ve found other family members also with that mutation,” Arteta said.
Amid changes in prostate cancer screening guidelines, Arteta notes there’s been a troubling trend.
Since 2014, the incidence rate of prostate cancer has increased by three percent overall and by about five percent for cases of advanced stage disease.