February 28, 2011 is Rare Disease Day — here in America and around the world. Sponsored by EURORDIS and by other national rare disease organizations (including the National Organization of Rare Disorders here in the USA), Rare Disease Day is held on the last day of February every year.
The most common form of prostate cancer — adenocarcinoma of the prostate — is certainly not a rare disease. There are over 2 million men living in America today after a diagnosis of prostate cancer, and the vast majority of those men (probably about 95 percent) did indeed have an adenocarcinoma. However, there are also a lot of forms of prostate cancer that are rare or extremely rare.
A rare disease is defined (in America) as a disease that is found in less than 200,000 living people at any one time. There are a whole bunch of prostate cancers that meet that definition:
- A wide variety of sarcomas of the prostate, including
- Rhabdomyosarcoma of the prostate
- Leiomyosarcoma of the prostate
- Small cell (oat cell) carcinoma of the prostate
- Transitional cell carcinoma of the prostate
- Squamous cell carcinoma of the prostate
Of all these rare forms of prostate cancer, about 90 percent are transitional cell carcinomas. So of the roughly 200,000 new cases of prostate cancer diagnosed each year, about 190,000 are adenocarcinomas and not rare; about 9,000 are transitional cell carcinomas and are rare; and then there are about another 1,000 males diagnosed each year with the truly rare forms of prostate cancer.
Of the truly rare forms of prostate cancer, small cell cancer of the prostate is the most common, and rhabdomyosarcoma is among the more common — but rhabdomyosarcoma of the prostate is most commonly found in children of 10 years or younger, and we are only talking about 50 or so cases each year.
Filed under: Diagnosis, Risk, Uncategorized | Tagged: rare |
THE "NEW" PROSTATE CANCER INFOLINK 
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