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Race and prostate specific antigen surveillance testing and monitoring 5-years after definitive therapy for localized prostate cancer

Abstract

Background

Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) surveillance testing is a cornerstone of prostate cancer survivorship because patients with biochemical recurrence often have no symptoms. However, the investigation of guideline-concordant PSA surveillance across racial groups is limited. We examined racial differences in PSA surveillance testing 5-years post-definitive treatment for localized prostate cancer.

Methods

We created a population-based retrospective cohort from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results-Medicare linked database for men diagnosed with prostate cancer between the years 2007 to 2011 with Medicare claims through 2016 (N = 21,372). Multivariable log-binomial regression models were used to examine the effect of race on the likelihood of not receiving at least one PSA surveillance test annually 5-years post-definitive treatment.

Results

Black men had 90%, 71%, 44%, 34%, and 23% increased risk of not receiving at least one PSA surveillance test annually in the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth years of post-definitive treatment follow-up, respectively. The adjusted relative risk [ARR] for Black men compared to White men were 1.68 (95% Confidence Interval [CI], 1.37–2.07), 1.52 (95% CI, 1.32–1.75), 1.32 (95% CI, 1.17–1.48), and 1.16 (95% CI, 1.05–1.29) in the first, second, third, and fourth year of post-definitive treatment, respectively.

Conclusion

Black men were more likely not to receive guideline-concordant PSA surveillance testing following definitive treatment for localized prostate cancer during the first 4 years post-treatment. This study suggest room for improvement in defining survivorship care plans for Black men to increase use of PSA surveillance testing.

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Fig. 1: Study flow diagram displaying the sample counts for included and excluded observations, with the number of men excluded at each stage in the sample creation process.

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Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by National Cancer Institute Grant 1K01CA230193-01A1, National Institute of Health KL2 Scholars Grant KL2TR00238, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences UL1 Diversity Supplement Grant 3UL1TR002378-02S2, and Institutional Research Grant-14-193-01 from the American Cancer Society.

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Contributions

IMA: Conceptualization, formal analysis, software, and writing – review and editing. RCC: Formal analysis, software, and writing – review and editing. HNY: Conceptualization, formal analysis, software, and writing– review and editing. JC: Methodology, project administration, writing – original draft, and writing – review and editing. AM: Formal analysis, and writing– review and editing. SRHB: Conceptualization, formal analysis, and writing– review and editing. VM: Formal analysis, writing– review and editing. JR-T: Formal analysis, writing– review and editing. EKC: Conceptualization, formal analysis, funding acquisition, software, and writing – review and editing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ewan K. Cobran.

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Asiri, I.M., Chen, R.C., Young, H.N. et al. Race and prostate specific antigen surveillance testing and monitoring 5-years after definitive therapy for localized prostate cancer. Prostate Cancer Prostatic Dis 24, 1093–1102 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41391-021-00365-w

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