WASHINGTON, DC USA (UroToday.com) - A patient with prostate cancer is more likely to get proton beam therapy if he lives in the vicinity of a center that has one, according to this report.
These researchers examined the regional treatment choices of men diagnosed with low-risk prostate cancer living inside or outside of a defined hospital referral region (HRR) containing a proton beam machine in California. They used data from the California Cancer Registry (CCR) to describe patient characteristics and treatment patterns from 2003 to 2006 in 19,907 newly diagnosed men with low-risk prostate cancer. Multinomial logistic regression analysis was used to calculate the odds ratios (OR) for receiving surgery, cryotherapy, brachytherapy, IMRT, proton beam, external beam, or primary androgen deprivation (PADT) if one lived in or outside an HRR with a proton accelerator using active surveillance (AS) for the reference category.
They found that a low-risk prostate cancer patient in California who resided in an HRR with a proton accelerator was more likely to receive proton beam therapy (OR 5.62, p <0.0001) or PADT (OR 2.45, p <0.0001) and less likely to receive IMRT (OR 0.55, p <0.0001), when compared to AS (reference OR 1.0). No differences were found for treatment rates of surgery, cryotherapy, brachytherapy, or EBRT when compared to AS.
Presented by David Aaronson, et al. at the American Urological Association (AUA) Annual Meeting - May 14 - 19, 2011 - Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Washington, DC USA
Reported for UroToday by Christopher P. Evans, MD, FACS, Professor and Chairman, Department of Urology, University of California, Davis, School of Medicine.
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