• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Norway; TNM; Iceland
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.613.3356; http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2007/06/12/jnci.djm005.full.pdf

Cancer of the prostate ranks second highest among cancers in males worldwide, with a more than fi vefold higher incidence in developed countries than in developing countries ( 1). The inci-dence of prostate cancer in North America is approximately twice that in Northern Europe ( 1). This wide international variation in incidence can be explained at least partly by the high and con-stantly growing diagnostic activity in most Western countries, which leads to increasing numbers of tumors of uncertain clinical signifi cance, with a highly favorable prognosis ( 2, 3). In Iceland, the age-standardized incidence of prostate cancer has increased nearly sixfold since 1955 and is currently 91.4 per 100 000 (for the period 2001 – 2005) ( 4). The incidence is similar to that in Norway, Sweden, and Finland ( 5). Five-year relative survival of prostate cancer patients has steadily improved in Iceland since 1955, being 80 % for males diagnosed from 1991 to 2000 ( 4, 6). The increasing proportion of prostate cancers with a very favorable prognosis supports the need for new methods to predict outcome because the factors currently used, TNM (tumor – node – metastasis) stage, tumor grade, and preoperative serum prostate-specifi c antigen level, often fail to provide reliable individual prediction. It remains an important challenge to determine which men are at risk of developing lethal prostate cancer ( 7).