Cancer can occur in almost any area of the male reproductive system. These cancers include:

• Prostate cancer.  Usually a slow-growing cancer, but one that can spread rapidly and invade bone and other structures. It accounts for 9 percent, or about 27,000, of male cancer deaths a year, according to the American Cancer Society (ACS). About one man in six will be diagnosed with prostate cancer, but only one man in 35 will die of the disease. Ninety-nine percent of men diagnosed with prostate cancer survive it at least five years, often far longer. Most prostate cancer is diagnosed after age 65.
  
  In the United States, black men have a 60 percent higher risk of prostate cancer than white men, according to the ACS. Prostate cancer is more common in North America and Europe than in Africa and other parts of the world. Scientists do not know the reasons for this difference.
  
  
• Testicular cancer. One of the most curable kinds of cancer, with more than 90 percent of patients surviving the disease. It is diagnosed in almost 8,000 American men a year. In the United States, white men face five to 10 times the risk of testicular cancer as black men and twice the risk of Asian men, according to the ACS. The worldwide risk is highest in the United States and Europe, lowest in Africa and Asia.
  
  
• Penile cancer. This cancer, which consists mostly of types of skin cancer, is rare in developed nations. It affects about one American man in 100,000, according to the ACS. In the United States, it accounts for about 0.2 percent of cancer in men and 0.1 percent of cancer deaths in men. In parts of Africa and South America, however, it accounts for up to 10 percent of cancer deaths in men.
  
  
• Urethral cancer. A condition even more rare than penile cancer. The urethra is about 8 inches long (20 centimeters [cm]) in men and 1.5 inches (3.8 cm) in women. It carries urine from the urinary bladder outside the body, and in men it also carries semen out of the penis during ejaculation. Urethral cancer affects women more than men.