[The definition and frequency of clinically unimportant prostate cancer in the patients treated with radical prostatectomy].

In autopsy studies more than 20% of men > 50 years old have prostate cancer, yet the lifetime risk of developing clinical cancer of the prostate is much less. Thus, early detection should not aim to all cancers, but only those that are potentially morbid or lethal. In the detailed morphometric examination of radical prostatectomy specimens, we found only 10% of the 610 patients had clinically unimportant cancer. Of the 207 patients with non-palpable tumor, 11% had clinically unimportant cancer compared to 10% of the 403 patients with palpable tumor (p = 0.52). And these non-palpable tumor were more likely to be curable disease compared to palpable tumor (66% versus 57%, p = 0.007). All recent studies indicated that most of prostate cancers which were detected with current diagnostic tests were clinically important and, therefore, should be treated aggressively.