More cancer diagnoses again last year; Prostate cancer almost as common as breast cancer

The number of cancer diagnoses in the Netherlands increased again last year, rising by 3,000 to around 130,000 people finding out they have cancer. The number of prostate cancer diagnoses is increasing significantly and that diagnosis is now almost as common as breast cancer, the Comprehensive Cancer Center of the Netherlands (IKNL) reported.

The IKNL called the increase in cancer patients expected due to the population growth and aging population. Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer in women with 15,407 diagnoses last year. For men, it’s prostate cancer with 15,212 diagnoses.

The age of diagnosis differs greatly with these two types of cancer. The median age for a breast cancer diagnosis is 63 years. For prostate cancer, it is 72. Men are also much more likely to already have metastatic cancer at the time of diagnosis - 3,000 for prostate cancer in 2023, compared to 1,000 for breast cancer in the same year.

This is partly because prostate cancer doesn’t have symptoms before it metastasizes, and partly because there is a population screening for breast cancer so it tends to be caught earlier.

The number of deaths due to these types of cancer is about equal, with about 3,000 people dying of each breast cancer and prostate cancer in 2023. However, the number of women dying of breast cancer has been slowly declining for years, while the number of deaths due to prostate cancer has been rising.

“The figures underline the importance of further awareness and research into prostate cancer. The difference in the number of patients with metastases at diagnosis shows that there is still much to be gained in early detection and accessible care,” said Ham van Melick, a urologist at the St. Antonius Hospital in Utrecht and Nieuwegein.

Van Melick thinks it is time to consider a population screening for prostate cancer. “Up until about five years ago, the disadvantages outweighed the advantages,” he told NOS. Then, men had to undergo painful biopsies with a risk of infection. But the diagnostics have developed significantly and MRI scans can now better distinguish between mild cancers that don’t require treatment and more aggressive ones that do.

“This means that we need to take a biopsy from far fewer men, and that can be much more targeted. With these improvements and the increase in diagnoses, it is important to explore whether a population study would be possible,” he told the broadcaster.

Skin cancer is the second most common type of cancer for both men and women, followed by lung cancer.