If Black men don’t do this earlier than white men, they are more likely to die
From The Minority/Black Health Blog
According to the NIH’s U.S. National Library of Medicine, Black men have a higher risk of developing — and dying from — prostate cancer compared to white men, and some researchers believe that this merits race-based screening guidelines.
Black men should get screened earlier
”It’s known that incidence of prostate cancer is 60 percent higher among Black men in the United States than among white men. Moreover, their death rate from prostate cancer is more than twice as high,” says Ruth Etzioni, senior author of the study who is with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center’s division of public health sciences, in Seattle.
Etzioni continues, “There is a need for clinical guidelines around prostate cancer screening that are specific to Black men.” This includes not only earlier screening, but screening more often than white men.
The numbers don’t lie
The results of the study estimated that 30 percent to 43 percent of Black men develop preclinical prostate cancer with no symptoms by the time they are 85. This rate represents an increase in risk of 28 percent to 56 percent higher than other men, according to the authors of the study.
In addition, their risk of being diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer is 44 percent to 75 percent higher than the general population.
For more details about these findings, visit www.medlineplus.gov/news/fullstory_164864.html
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