Background: Prostate cancer is common in elderly men, especially in western countries, and incidencesare rising in low-risk populations as well. In India, the age-standardized rates vary between registries. Underthese circumstances we have estimated the survival of prostate cancer patients based on age, family history,diabetes, hypertension, tobacco habit, clinical extent of disease (risk group) and treatment received. Materialsand Methods: The present retrospective study was carried out at the Tata Memorial Hospital (TMH), Mumbai,India. During years 1999-2002, some 850 prostate cancer cases, including 371 new cases, treated in TMH wereconsidered as eligible entrants for the study. Five-year survival rates using actuarial and loss-adjusted (LAR)method were estimated. Results: The patient population was distributed uniformly over the three age groups. Alarger proportion of the patients were diagnosed at ‘metastatic stage’ and hormone treatment was most common.20% patients had history of diabetes and 40% with hypertension. The 5-year overall survival rate was 64%.Survival was 55%, 74% and 52% for ‘<59 years’,’60-69 years’ and ‘>70 years’ respectively. Non-diabetic (70%),hypertensive (74%), with family history (80%) of cancer, with localized-disease (91%) and treated with surgery,either alone or in combination, (91%) had better survival. Conclusions: The present study showed that prostatecancer patients with localized disease at diagnosis experience a better outcome. Local treatment with eithersurgery or radiation achieves a reasonable outcome in prostate cancer patients. A detailed study will help inunderstanding the prognostic indicators for survival especially with the newer treatment technologies availablenow.
)