Racial disparities in prostate cancer treatment—does facility level make a difference?

With an estimated 1.1 million diagnoses per year, prostate cancer (PCa) is the second most common cancer among men worldwide. PCa incidence and mortality rates show significant ethnic and geographic variation; the mortality rates for example range between 2.9 and 29 per 100,000 in South-Central Asia and the Caribbean, respectively. Yet it is the second leading cause of death for men in the U.S., Europe, and most other developed countries (1). To date, three individually non-amenable risk factors for the development of PCa have been established: Heredity (at least 2-fold risk if a first-degree relative is diagnosed with PCa), ethnic origin (African-American heritage is associated with approximately 1.6-fold incidence rates compared to their Caucasian counterparts), and increasing age (2).