Up to half of deaths in men with prostate cancer 'a direct result of the disease'

  A high proportion of men who die following a diagnosis of prostate cancer die from the disease and not from other causes, a new study has found.

Researchers at King's College London analysed 50,066 men with prostate cancer, all of whom featured on the Thames Cancer Registry between 1997 and 2007.

Of the 20,181 men who died during the ten-year period, 49 per cent were recorded as having died from the disease itself.

Twelve per cent of the remaining men died from other cancers, 17 per cent from heart disease, eight per cent from pneumonia and 13 per cent from other causes.

The findings, which were presented at the National Cancer Intelligence Network (NCIN) conference in London, indicate that up to half of men who are diagnosed with prostate cancer before their death actually die as a direct result of the disease.

Study author Professor Henrik Moller, who is head of analysis and research at the NCIN, revealed: 'Our findings challenge the commonly held view that most men with prostate cancer will die with the disease rather than from it.'

Professor Malcolm Mason, Cancer Research UK's prostate cancer expert, described the research as an 'extremely important study'.

He added: 'The old notion that 'most men die with it, not of it' is simply not true for men with advanced disease.'