Measures of mortality in prostatic cancer.

The use of different expressions of mortality in prostate cancer can lead to difficulty in comparing reported data. We have used different measures of mortality in the same group of 438 patients presenting consecutively with histologically proven adenocarcinoma of the prostate, in order to assess the values and deficiencies of each method. The use of expected and relative survival is shown to be valuable in allowing indirect but objective assessment of disease specific mortality in prostatic cancer.