Prostate cancer active surveillance rates for men with low- and intermediate-risk disease rose sharply from 2014 to 2019, data presented at the Society of Urologic Oncology’s 23rd annual meeting in San Diego, California, show.
Despite this trend, active surveillance rates remain suboptimal for low-risk patients, Matthew R. Cooperberg, MD, MPH, of the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues concluded.
The data are from a study that included 84,596 men with newly diagnosed prostate cancer in the American Urological Association Quality (AQUA) Registry. The study population had a median age of 66 years, and 79.6% of patients were White and 15.9% were Black. The data reflected 1906 urology providers at 206 practices.
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Overall, 20.3% of men had low-risk cancer at diagnosis, a proportion that decreased from 24.6% in 2014 to 14.0% in 2019, according to the investigators.
Across the study period, 37.1% of low-risk and 14.8% of intermediate-risk patients opted for active surveillance as primary treatment. These proportions did not differ substantially between White patients (35.3% and 12.3%, respectively) and Black patients (34.1% and 12.2%, respectively), Dr Cooperberg and colleagues reported.
The proportion of patients choosing active surveillance increased among men from 2014 to 2019 in both the low- and intermediate-risk groups (from 29.6% to 49.5% in the low-risk group and from 10.4% to 20.4% in the intermediate-risk group).
Active surveillance rates at the practice and provider level vary widely, with extensive variation within each practice, the investigators noted.
Reference
Cooperberg M, Meeks W, Fang R, Gaylis F, Catalona W, Makarov D. Active surveillance for low-risk prostate cancer: Time trends and variation in the AUA Quality (AQUA) Registry. Presented at: SUO 2022, November 30 to December 2, San Diego, California. Poster 77.
