(UroToday.com) Dr. Stephen Williams, Urologist from the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, presented “The Use of Psychotropic Drugs Among Bladder Cancer Patients in the United States.” Over 50% of bladder cancer patients have a new psychiatric diagnosis following bladder cancer treatment.
The authors utilized the SEER-Medicare database to assess psychotropic prescription patterns in bladder cancer patients. In over 10,000 patients, 53% were prescribed psychotropic drugs following cancer diagnosis. Notably, prescription rates were higher among patients with higher stage disease. Interestingly, adherence to medications was low and decreased with time after bladder cancer diagnosis. It would be interesting to study psychiatric diagnoses in relation to modalities of bladder cancer treatment, as side effects related to costic intravesical therapies as well as cystectomy with urinary diversion can have significant and different psychosocial and sexual impacts.
Written by: Dr. Patrick Hensley, Urologic Oncology Fellow at MD Anderson Cancer Center, Twitter: @pjhensley11, with Ashish Kamat, MD, MBBS, President of The International Bladder Cancer Network (IBCN), The International Bladder Cancer Group (IBCG), and Professor of the Department of Urology, Division of Surgery, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas, Twitter: @UroDocAsh, at the International Bladder Cancer Network (IBCN) Annual Meeting, #IBCN2020, October 17, 2020.