What is the likelihood of prostate cancer spreading?

Highly variable. : Chance of spread depends the aggressiveness the tumor. Many factors are taken into consideration to predict the risk of spread, but one of the most important comes from the biopsy: the gleason sum (gs). Data from johns hopkins recently showed that a gs 6 almost never metastasized, while gs 8-10 represented high-risk disease. Below are prediction tools, or nomograms, which can help assess risk.

Varies: Many prostate cancers are low grade and unlikely to spread. In fact, if the prostate glands of older men who die of other causes are examined, many can be found to have a small prostate cancer that never caused any problems. A gleason score of 6 is essentially the lowest score in current practice and often has an excellent prognosis. However, some cancers are more aggressive (especially score >=8).