Dr. Deschamps notes that there are several important reasons to do this survey, including(i) patient-reported outcomes as reported in clinical studies do not necessarily match patient’s stories, (ii) quality of life (QoL) is an increasingly important topic, and information in patient-reported outcomes is poor, (iii) “getting rid of the cancer” changes quickly to “quality of life” and living with cancer. The survey was a 20-minute online survey (available in 19 languages ) among men with prostate cancer that received treatment. The study was a single-arm observational study using validated quality of life questionnaires (EPIC-26, EORTC-QLQ-C30, and EQ-5D-5L). Initial reports of this study demonstrated that 2,943 answers were recorded among 24 countries. The most common age at the time of survey among those that answered was 70-74 years of age (26%) with the most common age at diagnosis being 60-64 (24%) and 65-69 (24%). The majority of patients (1,937/2,943) had 1 treatment, whereas 636/2943 patients had 2 treatments:
![Deschamps_figure1.png](/images/Deschamps_figure1.png)
Among patients that had one treatment, the majority had surgical treatment. Dr. Deschamps provided the following summary points from the survey:
- In his opinion, there was an under-representation among men in Eastern Europe
- There was a slight bias in respondents who had higher education
- About 60% of all respondents received radical prostatectomy, hence the overall results
will be influenced by the quality of life effects of that treatment - The sample size of ~3,000 respondents makes the results reliable and clinically relevant
- The presented results are a snapshot at the time of the survey
According to EPIC-26, sexual function was the lowest quality of score among participants (score of 27), followed by urinary incontinence (score of 72). When asked how incontinence is after different treatments, active surveillance followed by radical prostatectomy had the worst score (65), followed by radical prostatectomy (score 71). When asked what proportion of men lack urinary control after treatment, the most common treatment modality was after surgery alone (18.2%), followed by after surgery plus radiotherapy (17.9%). Men most commonly noted that they have no problem with dripping and leakage (42%), whereas 41% of men had a small or very small problem, and 17% had a big or moderate problem. When asked how men rate their current ability to function sexually after treatment, 56% reported very poorly and 20% reported poorly, highlighting that ¾ of men who have been treated with prostate cancer rate their current ability to function sexually as poor or very poor. When queried how big a problem sexual functioning is, half of all men responding said that sexual function has been a moderate or big problem after treatment.
Presented by: André Deschamps, MD, Europa Uomo Chairman, Antwerp, Belgium
Written by: Zachary Klaassen, MD, MSc – Assistant Professor of Urology, Georgia Cancer Center, Augusta University/Medical College of Georgia Twitter: @zklaassen_md at the 12th European Multidisciplinary Congress on Urological Cancers (EMUC) (#EMUC20 ), November 13th - 14th, 2020
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