Prostate Cancers Predominantly Diagnosed at Stages 1 and 2 in Community Health Systems

Patients were diagnosed with prostate cancer at the expected average age with a majority of individuals diagnosed with stage 1 or 2 disease, and a significant minority presented with metastases, according to a retrospective analysis of community health systems presented at the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research 2022.

The research was presented by Rose Lorenzo, and it examined the demographic characteristics and the initial diagnostic staging of patients with prostate cancer who are treated in large community health systems.

Within the United States (US), over 50% of patients with cancer are treated and cared for within community health systems. While the profile of patients with prostate cancer seen in community health systems within the US is not widely published, the retrospective analysis aimed to describe the demographic and diagnostic staging characteristics of this patient population when getting treatment in community health systems.

This analysis was performed using the Syapse Learning Health NetworkTM (LHN), which is known to be an electronic medical record-derived database. LHN works to collect cancer care data from various care settings within community health systems across 33 states, with over 450 hospitals included, and from patients cared for by over 1,900 community-employed oncologists.

A total of 41,145 patients aged 18 years or older at the time of their prostate cancer diagnosis were identified using ICD-10 codes. The median age at the time of prostate cancer diagnosis was 66 years old.

Additionally, 98% of the patients examined were initially given the diagnosis of prostate cancer after January 1, 2010. White patients made up 79% of those identified while 17% were Black or African American, 5% were Hispanic/Latino, 1% were Asian, and 3% were other.

Other data utilized for this analysis consisted of structured data, including sex and birth date, as well as unstructured data including physician notes. The unstructured data were validated by certified tumor registrars and descriptively summarized.

Results revealed that all together, there were 37,643 patients whose stage at diagnosis was available. Of these patients, 1% had stage 0 15% had stage 1, 50% had stage 2, 22% had stage 3, and 12% had stage 4 prostate cancer.

Overall, this analysis which focused on community health systems demonstrated that patients with prostate cancer were diagnosed at the expected average age. A majority of those diagnosed had stage 1 or 2 disease, and just a significant minority presented with metastases.

Further analysis is expected for the future in order to provide more insight into diagnostic and treatment patterns of patients within these community health systems who have prostate cancer.

Reference:

Lorenzo R, Pomerantz D, Wolf F, et al. Demographic characteristics, and initial diagnostic staging of patients with prostate cancer across large community health systems in the US. Presented at: 2022 International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research; May 15-18, 2022. Washington, DC.