Recent headlines have thrust prostate cancer screening guidelines and late stage diagnoses into broader healthcare industry conversations.
Here are five things hospital and health system leaders should know about the state of prostate cancer in 2025:
- What are the current prostate cancer screening guidelines and treatment recommendations?
Men may be offered prostate cancer screening at different life stages depending on their individual risk. Age, race, family history and genetics all play a role in an individual’s risk of developing prostate cancer.
Individuals with a higher risk may consider beginning prostate cancer screening at age 40, while those with an average risk may begin after age 50. Most experts recommend stopping prostate cancer screening at about age 70 or if the patient is diagnosed with a condition that shortens their life expectancy.
There are currently two available screening tests for prostate cancer, a prostate-specific antigen blood test and a digital rectal exam.
Prostate cancer treatment is individualized for each patient and may include active surveillance, surgery, radiation, hormone therapy, chemotherapy and/or immunotherapy. - Should all prostate cancers be labeled “cancer”?
In 2024, some experts argued that low-risk prostate cancers caught at an earlier stage could be re-classified as benign. This reclassification could help patients avoid more aggressive surgery or radiation treatments and opt instead for active surveillance.
Other experts worried the label change would lead patients to fall behind on follow-up care and screening recommendations.
The crux of the conversation hinges on wanting to reduce patient’s anxiety about their diagnoses while ensuring patients understand potential future risks. - How have prostate cancer incidence and mortality rates changed over time?
Among men, prostate cancer is the leading type for cancer incidence and the second-leading type for cancer mortality, behind lung and bronchus.
Prostate cancer mortality rates decreased 0.6% per year between 2012 and 2022, according to the National Cancer Institute’s “Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer,” published April 21 in Cancer.
Between 2018 and 2022, prostate cancer mortality rates decreased in American Indian & Alaska Native men, but the rates neither increased or decreased among white, Black, Asian Pacific Islander and Hispanic men.
Prostate cancer incidence rates increased between 2017 and 2021 at 2.9% each year.
- How did COVID-19 affect late-stage prostate cancer diagnoses?
Like most screenable cancers, there was a pandemic-related surge of late-stage prostate cancer diagnoses in 2020.
Percentage of late-stage cancer diagnoses:
| Prostate cancer | All sites | |
| 2017 | 22.8% | 48.9% |
| 2018 | 22.6% | 48.4% |
| 2019 | 23.1% | 48.4% |
| 2020 | 24.3% | 49.8% |
| 2021 | 24.4% | 48.3% |
According to the NCI’s “Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer,” even though the rate of prostate cancer diagnoses did not yet return to pre-pandemic levels, the difference between diagnoses in 2020 and 2021 is not statistically significant and may be attributed to updated screening recommendations and diagnostic advancements.
- Do racial or demographic disparities exist within prostate cancer care?
According to the American Cancer Society’s annual cancer statistics report published Jan. 16 in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, Black men have a 67% higher prostate cancer incidence rate and are twice as likely to die of prostate cancer compared to white men.
Some progress is being made, as the racial disparity found in prediagnostic MRI utilization among non-Hispanic Black and non-Hispanic white patients decreased from 43% to 20% between 2012 and 2019.
Diagnostic disparities still exist demographically, with rural residents in the U.S. 35% less likely to undergo prediagnostic MRI compared to urban residents.
Additionally, residents of the U.S. Census Central region are 49% less likely to undergo prediagnostic MRI compared to residents in the U.S. Census West region.
