Abstract B023: Racial-ethnic disparities in the receipt of initial, cure-intended treatment for localized prostate cancer, SEER Medicare, 2004-2013
Authors: Richards Thomas B. , Stinchcomb David G. , McNeel Timothy S. , Ross Wilhelmina , Ng Diane 
Published: August 2020

Purpose: We sought to determine if there were racial/ethnic disparities in the receipt of initial, cure-intended treatment for localized prostate cancer.

Methods: We analyzed prostate cancer cases reported in 2004-2013 to Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) cancer registries, linked with Medicare claims from 2003-2014. We focused on cases that were fee-for-service with continuous Part A and B Medicare from 12 months before first diagnosis to 6 months after diagnosis, and that had American Joint Committee on Cancer 6th Edition tumor extent T1 or T2 without metastatic disease. We used SEER race/ethnicity to categorize cases as non-Hispanic whites; non-Hispanic blacks; non-Hispanic Asian or Pacific Islanders; Hispanics of any race; and Other/Unknown. We defined initial treatment to include 1 month before to 6 months after first diagnosis; cure-intended radical prostatectomy to include radical prostatectomy with or without radiation therapy; cure-intended radiation therapy to include radiation therapy without a radical prostatectomy; and noncurative treatment to include other initial treatment or no treatment. We used multivariable logistic regression to calculate adjusted odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for receipt of each category of initial treatment, compared with the remaining cases, and adjusting for race/ethnicity; life expectancy from the man's age at diagnosis; pretreatment prostate cancer disease recurrence risk category; Charlson comorbidity score; year of diagnosis; SEER registry region, census tract poverty; and metropolitan or nonmetropolitan county location.

Results: Our final study cohort included a total of 125,072 men, with 95,763 non-Hispanic white, 13,616 non-Hispanic black, 4,658 non-Hispanic Asian or Pacific Islanders, 7,933 Hispanic any race, and 3,102 in the Other/Unknown category. After adjustment for multiple variables, non-Hispanic blacks were less likely than non-Hispanic whites to receive initial radical prostatectomy (with or without radiation therapy) (OR, 0.57; 95% CI, 0.53-0.61) or initial radiation therapy without radical prostatectomy (OR, 0.85; 95% CI, 0.82-0.88), and more likely to receive noncurative treatment (OR, 1.51; 95% CI, 1.45-1.57). Non-Hispanic Asian or Pacific Islanders were more likely than non-Hispanic whites to receive initial radiation therapy without radical prostatectomy (OR, 1.23; 95% CI, 1.16-1.31), and less likely to receive noncurative treatment (OR, 0.84; 95% CI, 0.78-0.89). The adjusted odds ratios for curative and noncurative initial treatment received by Hispanics of any race were similar to those for non-Hispanic whites.

Conclusion: Compared with non-Hispanic whites, non-Hispanic black men were less likely to receive curative and more likely to receive noncurative initial treatment for localized prostate cancer during 2004-2013.

Citation Format: Thomas B. Richards, David G. Stinchcomb, Timothy S. McNeel, Wilhelmina Ross, Diane Ng. Racial-ethnic disparities in the receipt of initial, cure-intended treatment for localized prostate cancer, SEER Medicare, 2004-2013 [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Eleventh AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2018 Nov 2-5; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2020;29(6 Suppl):Abstract nr B023.