Carcinoma of the prostate in men 80 or more years old

Abstract

CARCINOMA of the prostate T has been the subject of several thorough investigations, all of which have demonstrated an appalling frequency with advancing years.Rich, studying routine autopsy material in which removal of a single block from each prostate was usual, found an incidence of 14 per cent in males older than 50 years.Gaynor, in a thorough study of 1040 prostates, found an increasing incidence of carcinoma from 4 per cent in the 30-to-39-year age group to a maximum of 40 per cent in the 90 or older age group.The latter group included five cases, two with carcinoma.Moore, performing single sections at 4-mm.intervals ("step-section" technique), found an over-all incidence of 16.7 per cent in 375 males between the ages of 20 and 90 years.Carcinoma was not found in those less than 40; the incidence increased thereafter to a peak of 29 per cent in the ninth decade.Baron and Angrist, also using the step-section technique, found an incidence of 46 per cent in fifty autopsied males more than 50 years of age.Their study included only one patient 80 or more years of age.Recently Andrews studied 142 prostates by the step-section technique and demonstrated an increasing incidence of carcinoma from 4.5 per cent in the 40-to-49-year age group to 31.8 per cent in the 70-to-79-year age group.No patients of 80 or more were included in his study.Such studies have indicated that the incidence of carcinoma of the prostate as determined by refined histological techniques varies greatly from the frequency of its clinical and even autopsy recognition.Routine autopsy protocols at the Los Angeles General