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A Continuous Increase in Prevalence of Prostate Cancer in Korea and Its Causes Prostate cancer has become the most common neoplasm in men and the second leading cause of cancer death in Western countries, while the Asian populations have the lowest incidence and mortality rates. However, the incidence of prostate cancer has been rapidly increasing in the past 10 years in Asian populations including Korean, although it is still much lower than in Western populations. The prostate cancer is now the 6th leading cancer in Korean men and resulted in 744 deaths (3.1 per 105) in 2002. Comparative geographic pathologic autopsy studies shows no difference in the incidence of latent prostate cancer between countries with high and low risk of clinical prostate cancer. However, the foci of the latent prostate cancer are frequently larger and more aggressive in countries with high incidence and mortality rate. Consequently, the different incidence of the clinical prostate cancer is not based on different initiation of malignant transformation, but on different promoting factors. Three risk factors may be responsible for the increase of prostate cancer in Korea : increase in population of aging men, increase in detection rate using prostate specific antigen, and high fat diet.
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