Background: Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in American men, diagnosed mainly in older men. Treatment options for stage 3 prostate cancer include external beam radiation plus hormone therapy (HT) vs external beam radiation plus brachytherapy vs radical prostatectomy in selected cases.
Methodology: A total of 52,384 patients with stage 3 prostate cancer have been studied from national cancer database comparing Veterans Affairs Hospital (VAH) vs Academic Centers from years 2003-2013. Fisher exact test was used to make direct comparisons between centers and treatment type. We used a Bonferroni-adjusted P.
Results: Within both the 50-59 and 60-69-year-old age groups, when compared to Academic hospitals, VAH performed surgery alone at a lower rate (87.6% vs 77.4% and 86.1% vs 77.7%, respectively) and performed Surgery + Radiation and Radiation + Hormone therapy at a significantly higher rate (8.2% vs 15.0% and 6.8% vs 10.0%, respectively). In 70-79 year age group, when compared to Academic hospitals, VAH performed surgery alone at a lower rate (73.5% vs 43.1%) and Hormone therapy only and Radiation + Hormone therapy at significantly higher rate (3.7% vs 17.3% and 20.8% vs 33.9%, respectively) (all P < .001).
Conclusion: In VAH, people within age groups of 50-59, 60-69 years had more surgery plus radiation, radiation plus HT and less surgery alone than Academic centers. In 70-79 age group, VAH performed much more HT only, radiation plus HT and less surgery alone than Academic Centers.