Co-morbidity in prostate cancer.

With the widespread use of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening, prostate cancer has become the mostly common diagnosed malignancy in the United States. Because prostate cancer preferably affects elderly males and usually progresses slowly, there is an increasing interest in the significance of co-morbid conditions complicating the course of the disease. Several scores have been applied to assess the co-morbidity in newly diagnosed prostate cancer patients and to estimate the impact of concomitant diseases on survival. Patients in their eighth decade of life, diagnosed with well or moderately differentiated localized prostate cancer and suffering from severe co-morbidity, are likely to die of causes other than the malignancy. Clinical trials evaluating different treatment modalities for localized prostate cancer need controlling and stratification for age and co-morbidity. The life expectancy of patients with only one controlled concomitant disorder, however, is not significantly compromised and the management of these patients remains controversial.