Eight-month Old Baby in Britain Diagnosed with Prostate cancer.

An 8-month old baby in Britain was diagnosed with prostate cancer recently. Obviously, this is not the typical age for prostate cancer, which is more common with increasing age and generally only afflicts men over the age of 40.

No reports have yet detailed what type of prostate cancer the infant has, but it is very unlikely that it is adenocarcinoma (by far the most common type of prostate cancer in older men). It is more likely to be a rhabdomyosarcoma, which is a much more common cancer in children.

News reports that I have seen have tended to emphasize that this baby is likely the youngest prostate cancer patient ever (which may or may not be true), but rhabdomyosarcoma and other childhood cancers are not completely unheard of and they can start in many different sites in the body - including the prostate. In fact, I know surgeons who have had to perform prostatectomies on children due to cancers such as this.

In case you're wondering, prostate rhabdomyosarcoma in small children is usually treated with radiation and chemotherapy first to decrease the size of the tumor, then, if any cancer remains, the prostate and surrounding tissue is surgically removed.