ORLANDO, FL USA (UroToday.com) - Dr Bhalaajee Meenaski-Sundaram reviewed SEER-Medicare data to compare outcomes of patients diagnosed with prostate cancer prior to kidney transplant (KT) to the general prostate cancer population, hypothesizing that the outcomes were equivalent.
Six hundred two patients (667 if including those after KT) had prostate cancer treatment within 2 years prior to KT. Half of the patients received radiation therapy and about 1/3 underwent prostatectomy. Sixteen percent received multimodal therapy and 4 percent had no therapy. Median follow up was 52 months, and 88% of patients had clinically-localized disease. Although the KT patients had worse overall survival, their cancer-specific survival was similar in the KT patients and general prostate cancer population when stratified by treatment modality.
Limitations of the study were that there was no risk stratification and that follow up was short considering the prolonged natural history of this disease. Additionally, the “no treatment” group may be heterogeneous: patients may have androgen deprivation, negligence, or active surveillance. Lastly, Dr. Meenaski-Sundarum suggested that although the cancer-specific survival is the same, the poorer overall survival of transplant patients compared to general population prostate cancer patients might have a confounding effect.
Presented by Bhalaajee Meenaski-Sundaram at the American Urological Association (AUA) Annual Meeting - May 16 - 21, 2014 - Orlando, Florida USA
Oklahoma City, OK USA
Written by Philip Abbosh, MD, PhD, medical writer for UroToday.com
