Prostate cancer: a New Brunswick tale

Abstract

This note provides a descriptive view of prostate cancer mortality in the Canadian province of New Brunswick over a ten year period spanning the 1980s and 1990s.

Notes

¹ This work is based in part on data provided by the New Brunswick Department of Health and Wellness. The interpretation and conclusions contained herein do not necessarily represent those of the Government of New Brunswick or the New Brunswick Department of Health and Wellness.

² Much of the literature confuses absolute risk: the chance of developing the disease over a particular time period, with relative risk: the ratio of the absolute risk of those containing a certain risk factor to the absolute risk of those without the risk factor. Having a first line relative (brother, father) with prostate cancer is thought to double relative risk. Having two first line relatives diagnosed with prostate cancer quadruples relative risk. Persons of colour have a higher absolute risk than Caucasians. See Gallagher and Fleshner (1998) and Vetrosky and White (1998) for more on the clinical perspectives of the disease, and Dupont and Plummer (1996) on the differences between absolute and relative risk.

³ See Aronson et al. (1996) and Seidler et al. (1998) for evidence that exposure to diesel fuel or fumes may be associated with the development of prostate cancer.

⁴ Krahn et al. (1999) estimate that the costs of PSA screening programs for all eligible men in Canada could be as high as $412 million by 2005. See also Perron et al. (2002).

⁵ I thank Chris Heissner and John Boyne for providing this data.

⁶ Subsequent analyses examine the period from 1989 to 1997. This is because a consistent measure of the male New Brunswick population by health regions was available only back to 1989.

⁷ It is worth noting that these results depend critically on the accuracy of the reporting mechanisms in place. If vital statistics data was not collected and coded properly, or if there were variations across regions in the manner in which reports were constructed, then the findings reported herein may not be truly reflective of the disease in New Brunswick.

⁸ The expected number of deaths is constructed using age-specific mortality rates, standardized to the New Brunswick male population. Age-specific mortality rates were obtained from Health Canada (http://cythera.ic.gc.ca/dsol/cancer/d_age_e.html).