Effect of young age on prostate cancer survival: a population-based assessment (United States).

OBJECTIVE: To assess whether men diagnosed with prostate cancer at younger ages have a poorer prognosis. The influence of select factors (race, marital status, stage, histological grade, histology, presence of comorbid cancer, and time of diagnosis) on the relation between age at diagnosis and survival was considered. METHODS: Analyses were based on 289,809 men diagnosed with malignant prostate cancer, ages 40 years and older in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program between 1973 and 1997, actively followed for vital status through 31 December 1998. Cases diagnosed through autopsy or death certificate were excluded. Five-year relative survival and Cox proportional hazards were used for assessment. RESULTS: Five-year relative survival increased, leveled off, and then decreased over the age span. This pattern was most pronounced in men with advanced stage and poor grade tumors. Conditional death hazards that showed significantly higher hazard ratios in younger age groups (i.e. 40-44 and 45-49) represented local/regional stage and poorly differentiated/undifferentiated tumors, distant stage and moderately differentiated, poorly differentiated/ undifferentiated, or unknown grade, and unknown stage and unknown grade. The influence of young age on prostate cancer prognosis for advanced stage and poorly differentiated/undifferentiated cases was not significantly influenced by year of diagnosis or race. CONCLUSIONS: Younger age is a prognostic factor for prostate cancer survival. The relationship between young age at diagnosis and survival is significantly influenced by stage and histological grade at diagnosis.

Perceptions of unconditional and conditional worth among college students.

Self-esteem scales tend to represent conditional perceptions of self-esteem. The Worth Index has been previously validated as an effective measure for identifying both conditional and unconditional perceptions of worth. We administered the Worth Index to 1,161 college-aged students at Brigham Young University to assess their current perceptions of unconditional and conditional worth. Both men and women agreed more strongly with items involving unconditional worth than conditional worth. A negative correlation was found between ratings of unconditional and conditional worth. Women had lower unconditional worth scores than men, which was related to being more likely to wish they were someone else, desire to have a better body, and to being concerned about weight. Agreement with two overview measures of self-esteem involving a "good" sense of self and stability of self-esteem was positively associated with agreement on statements about unconditional worth. This research shows the importance of incorporating unconditional worth into self-esteem measures.