What factors are associated with the increase in the incidence of prostate cancer in China?
1. Possible reasons associated with the increasing incidence include: the popularization of the concept of routine physical examination; The concept of PSA screening of prostate cancer-related tumor markers has been promoted, the improvement of diagnostic technology, and the impact of environmental changes and dietary changes on the incidence of tumors.
2. Population aging also plays an important role in the increase in the incidence of prostate cancer. In recent years, the aging trend of China's social population has become increasingly obvious. It is expected that by 2040, the proportion of the population aged 65 and over will exceed 20% of the total population. At the same time, the aging of the elderly population is becoming more and more obvious: the number of people aged 80 and over is increasing at a rate of 5% per year, and will increase to more than 74 million by 2040. As an elderly male susceptible to the disease, it can be expected that the incidence of prostate cancer in China will continue to grow in the future.
Third, the significant imbalance in incidence between urban and rural areas reflects the differences in the level of medical care in different regions, which may lead to differences in the importance of disease awareness and early screening. On the other hand, it also suggests that living environment factors may play an important role in the pathogenesis of prostate cancer. The evidence for this comes from two sources:
1. Multiple studies have shown that compared with traditional Eastern dietary habits such as vegetables, tofu and tea, a Western-style diet containing high sugar, fat and caffeine is more likely to increase the incidence of tumors.
2. Research data show that the incidence of prostate cancer is significantly higher among Chinese Americans living in the United States than Chinese residents living in Chinese mainland, which also shows that in addition to the differences between races, dietary environment is also an important factor closely related to the incidence of prostate cancer.