Most Asian Men Have Better Prostate Cancer Survival Rates

MONDAY, Aug. 13 (HealthDay News) -- Your prognosis for surviving prostate cancer may depend on your racial and ethnic background, a new study suggests.

Asian men have better survival rates than white males, while South Asians have the worst survival rates, according to results of a study of men living in California.

"Nearly all Asians do far better when they get prostate cancer," said study lead author Dr. Anthony Robbins, of the California Cancer Registry in Sacramento. "But Indian men didn't do as well as other Asian men, and they did worse than all other men, including blacks and whites," he added.

The reasons for these racial and ethnic differences in prostate cancer survival aren't known, Robbins said, adding, "We just couldn't explain it."

Not only couldn't the researchers explain the finding, they were left with an apparent paradox. The Asian men were usually older and had more advanced disease at the time of diagnosis, Robbins said. "Based on their risk factors, you would think they were going to do worse," he said.

In the study, Robbins and his colleagues collected data on 116,916 men (108,076 whites and 8,840 Asians from the six largest represented Asian ethnicities -- Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, South Asian, and Vietnamese) diagnosed with prostate cancer. The researchers compared prognostic factors and survival rates among the men.

The researchers found that for Asians, risk profiles were worse compared with whites. For example, Asians were more likely to have more advanced disease and use non-curative therapies. But, for Asians -- except for South Asians -- survival rates were equal to or better than rates for whites.

Japanese-American men were 34 percent less likely to die from prostate cancer compared with whites. But South Asian men -- those from India, Pakistan,Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bhutan -- were 40 percent more likely to die from the disease, Robbins said.

The study was published online Monday in the journalCancer.

Some of the factors that may influence the findings include diet, exercise and genetics, Robbins speculated.

"Doctors that are seeing patients for prostate cancer need to be aware that these differences can be used as factors in planning the patient's treatment and telling the patient what their survival might be," Robbins said.

Dr. Durado Brooks, director of prostate and colorectal cancer at the American Cancer Society, thinks this study demonstrates the need to better understand how different racial and ethnic groups respond to diseases.