Currently, it is becoming clear that the prostate gland may be the major site for medical problems in the American man. Abnormalities in prostate growth and infection in human prostate glands produce some of the most common, costly, and devastating disease occurring in men. This became apparent in the National Kidney and Urological Disease Advisory Report of 1990.' It was reported that the annual treatment in 1985 of all prostate diseases in the United States required 4.4 million physician visits per year and 836,000 admissions to hospitals with 39,215 deaths resulting, a cost in excess of $3 billion dollars per year (Table 1). Benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) occurs in almost 80% of men by the age of 80 years, and it is estimated that 18 million men have evidence of this tumor, and 25% will require prostate surgery during their lives to alleviate urinary obstruction. The treatment of BPH in American men requires more than 400,000 surgical procedures each year, and in addition, many more will have symptoms of BPH. BPH-related problems make this disorder the second leading cost of Medicare reimbursement.
Prostate cancer now exceeds lung cancer as the most commonly diagnosed cancer in American men, and it is the second leading cause of cancer death in this group. Of all cancers, the prevalence of prostate cancer increases the most rapidly with age, and the continuing shift of the American demographic pattern toward an older-aged population is leading to an increase in the number of patients in whom prostate cancer is diagnosed in the United States. It is estimated that, during the years 1985-2000, there will be a 37% increase in prostate cancer deaths per year and a 90% increase in