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Racial disparities in treatment delay among younger men with prostate cancer

Prostate Cancer and Prostatic Diseases volume 25, pages 590–592 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

Young men (≤55 years) with prostate cancer (PC) may experience treatment delays despite clinical consequences of delays beyond six months. Using the United States National Cancer Database (2004–2017), we employed multivariable logistic regression analysis to retrospectively examine racial disparities in localized PC treatment delays >6 months since diagnosis. Of the 89,196 men ≤55 years included, young Black men experienced treatment delays beyond six months more frequently than young White men (7.39% vs. 3.96%; AOR 1.95, 95% CI 1.81–2.09, p < 0.001), a disparity that was greater than that among men ages 56–64 (pinteraction < 0.001). This result persisted upon restricting the sample to men with private insurance/managed care. The finding that Black men with localized PC experienced treatment delays almost twice as frequently as White men underscores access barriers that may go beyond the direct costs of care.

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Fig. 1: Adjusted percentages of men delaying treatment ≥180 days following initial diagnosis for prostate cancer by age, race, and insurance status.

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Data availability

Research data from the National Cancer Database are available upon request from the American Cancer Society and the American College of Surgeons (http://ncdbpuf.facs.org/).

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Acknowledgements

The authors had full access to all the data in the study and take responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. Funding grant number R01-CA240582 (PLN).

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Paul L. Nguyen, Edward Christopher Dee.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Bhav Jain

  2. Department of Radiation Oncology, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA

    Kosj Yamoah

  3. Department of Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Christopher S. Lathan

  4. Department of Radiation Oncology, Kaiser Permanente Northwest, Portland, OR, USA

    Vinayak Muralidhar

  5. Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Miami/Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, Miami, FL, USA

    Brandon A. Mahal

  6. Department of Radiation Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Paul L. Nguyen

  7. Department of Radiation Oncology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, USA

    Edward Christopher Dee

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Contributions

All authors contributed to the design and conceptualization of the research question. BJ and ECD carried out the statistical analyses. BJ, PLN, and ECD drafted the initial manuscript. All authors contributed to the revision and critique of the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Paul L. Nguyen or Edward Christopher Dee.

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Competing interests

BAM receives funding from the Prostate Cancer Foundation and (PCF), the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO), the Department of Defense, and the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center outside the submitted work. PLN reported receiving grants and personal fees from Bayer, Janssen, and Astellas and personal fees from Boston Scientific, Dendreon, Ferring, COTA, Blue Earth Diagnostics, and Augmenix outside the submitted work. VM received a grant from the Conquer Cancer Foundation outside the submitted work.

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Jain, B., Yamoah, K., Lathan, C.S. et al. Racial disparities in treatment delay among younger men with prostate cancer. Prostate Cancer Prostatic Dis 25, 590–592 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41391-021-00479-1

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