Talk:Prostate cancer

The article says:

The risk of developing prostate cancer increases with age; the average age of diagnosis is 67.

And also:

Most men diagnosed have tumors confined to the prostate; 99% of them survive more than 10 years from their diagnoses.

This doesn't sound possible. Ignore the cancer. If you take a sample of men aged 67 -- even healthy ones -- I don't believe that 99% of them will live another ten years.

Is it possible that what the sources say is that 99% of diagnosed men don't die from prostate cancer in the next ten years? That's very different than the current claim, which says 99% of them don't die at all. 45.48.98.78 (talk) 19:30, 4 February 2025 (UTC) Reply

Should read: One in eight men is diagnosed with prostate cancer in his lifetime and one in forty of those diagnosed die of the disease. 23rdCenturyHydroman (talk) 22:38, 4 February 2025 (UTC) Reply

Mountaincirque, re this edit, here is the edit summary, and here is an expanded edit summary. Please gain consensus for adding this primary study to a Featured article. Do you have any high-quality recent secondary source that mentions this dated primary study, reported in a source that does not comply with WP:MEDRS or WP:MEDDATE? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:33, 5 February 2025 (UTC) Reply

Hi Mountaincirque, I recently updated this article and tried to cover the many aspects of the disease with due weight to how well they're represented in high-quality sources. The association with ejaculation frequency certainly captures the imagination(!) but so far it doesn't seem to be broadly accepted by the medical mainstream. It wasn't mentioned at all in most high-quality sources, suggesting experts on the topic don't find the evidence compelling. We really aim to follow the medical mainstream rather than lead it. So if further research strengthens the case for this association, I'm sure it'll end up in more reviews, and then be reflected in our article.

Perhaps one reason it hasn't caught on is that other sexual behavior associations don't seem to all point in the same obvious direction: This 2021 review (which you can hopefully access through The Wikipedia Library) mentions the results of the large cohort study that found this association that you reference in your edit. The review points out the two other pieces of data that confuse the picture: men with delayed first sexual intercourse were less likely to develop prostate cancer. Men with more sexual partners were more likely to develop prostate cancer. Sexual behavior is probably correlated to various other life attributes, so it's hard to say (and experts do not say) if these are related to cancer risk, or just proxies for some attributes that are. Best, Ajpolino (talk) 02:42, 6 February 2025 (UTC) Reply

Mountaincirque, As that review says, in a brief paragraph summarizing findings about sexual behavior, "... these observations should be considered within the limits of cohort studies, and whether these are findings of correlation or causation remains unknown" ... i.e., probably for that reason, the content is not given attention in other secondary literature, and the content is undue in a broad overview. That is, we don't give attention to findings that secondary reviews don't give attention to -- Wikipedia follows, not leads. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:37, 6 February 2025 (UTC) Reply

Adjustments initiated per IP 202, using two secondary reviews. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:35, 6 February 2025 (UTC) Reply

The goal of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Vital Signs 2026 campaign is to bring all 101 top-importance articles—including this one—up to at least B-class quality. Many of these articles are widely read but overdue for review, so even small improvements can have a big impact.

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To reach B class, articles should have: suitable referencing, reasonable coverage, a clear structure, good prose, helpful illustrations, and be understandable to a broad audience. Contributions of any size are appreciated. Femke (talk) 16:00, 20 December 2025 (UTC) Reply