1. ¹Department of Urology, University of Alabama, Birmingham, AL, USA
2. ²Birmingham VA Medical Center, Birmingham, AL, USA

Correspondence: Dr JL Colli, Department of Urology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 1530 3rd Avenue South, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA. E-mail: jan.colli@ccc.uab.edu

Received 10 December 2007; Revised 4 January 2008; Accepted 7 January 2008; Published online 12 February 2008.

Abstract

We hypothesized that prostate cancer screening and availability of urologists among states may be associated with reduced prostate cancer mortality in the United States. To test this hypothesis, state-specific prostate cancer mortality rates for white males were compared to urologist population densities and prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening rates on a state-by-state basis. The urologist population density was calculated by dividing the number of urologists per state by the population. We found that prostate cancer mortality rates correlated inversely with urologist population densities (P<0.01) and PSA screening (P<0.01) suggesting that screening and treatment reduce prostate cancer mortality.