Abstract No:101 at the recent ASCO Conference
It is sad, but it is true, a subset of men presenting with advanced prostate cancer never receive proper therapy. This can be attributed to a variety of factors including poor functional status, co-morbidities, and patient preference.
The researchers sought to determine the prevalence, and characteristics, of this untreated patient population.
They used The National Cancer Database (NCDB) to identify men diagnosed with stage IV prostate cancer between 2000 and 2008. Men who received no anticancer therapy (including chemotherapy, hormonal therapy, radiation, and surgery) were identified and were further categorized by age, race, insurance status, and income. For these subcategories, prevalence ratios were generated using the proportion of untreated metastatic prostate cancer (uMPC) to metastatic prostate cancer (MPC).
They found that out of the 1,201,732 men with prostate cancer diagnosed between 2000-2008, 59,074 (4.9%) had metastatic prostate cancer MPC at diagnosis. Of those men presenting with MPC, a shocking 6,582 (11.1%) received no anticancer therapy of any sort. With every 10-year increase in age, the prevalence of uMPC increased 43% (PR=1.43