Prostate cancer more common and deadly in China

Ti Gong

Local medical experts found genetic and molecular speciality of Asians with prostate cancer from Western patients, which is important to develop more precise and individualized treatment for Asian patients.

Both the incidences and mortality rate of prostate cancer have risen quickly in China, making the cancer with the highest rising speed in the country. It claimed the lives of about 50,000 people in China last year, twice as many as in the United States.

However, there is no epidemiological research or genomic studies targeting Asian patients, as prostate cancer patients are still considered a small group compared with Western countries. This has crippled the development of precise diagnoses and treatments for prostate cancer in Asia.

Dr Ye Dingwei from the Shanghai Cancer Center led a research team studying the epidemiology of prostate cancer around the world over the past 30 years, and found incidences of prostate cancer in Asia are significantly lower than in Western countries but with wide disparities between countries. The results of the study were published in the journal Nature Review Urology.

The research found countries with higher economic standards have higher incidences of prostate cancer, and that high-fat diets, smoking, excessive alcohol and obesity place Asians at high risk. Fruits and vegetables, green tea, coffee and exercise can lower the risk.

Ye's team also found prostate cancer mortality rates are much higher in Asia than Western countries. Asian countries with higher standards of living have lower mortality rates, and those screened for prostate cancer have a much higher survival rate.

“With further economic development, the incidence of prostate cancer in China will continue to rise," Ye said. "While adopting a healthy lifestyle with a low-fat diet, not smoking and losing weight are important. Promoting early screening to detect prostate cancer in its early stages will do the most to increase patients' survival rates."

The Shanghai Cancer Center is the first in the country to promote community-based prostate cancer screenings. So far, 12 screening centers and 22 community-based screening service stations have been established, recognized by international counterparts as the “foregoer of prostate cancer screening in China.”

The hospital is also the first in the nation to introduce prostate cancer screening outpatient services, serving local residents and promoting the early screening service model across the nation.

Ye’s team also conducted a genetic study comparing Asian and Western patients, and found there are big differences in molecular levels and genetic mutations.

“This convinced me it isn't scientific or precise to copy Western countries’ data and experiences," Ye said. "We have followed Western countries to conduct many similar studies, but patients’ survival rates didn’t improve a lot. We should conduct more innovative research based on the Asian population’s unique features to improve diagnoses and treatments that prolong patients’ survival.”

To streamline the process, a precision treatment and imaging center for prostate cancer has been established at the Shanghai Cancer Center to conduct individualized treatments for patients and boost clinical research.

The hospital conducted 1,218 prostate cancer operations last year, the most of any hospital in Shanghai. Its patients’ five-year survival rate is almost 83 percent, the highest in the nation and in line with developed countries.

Ti Gong