Association of comorbid disease burden at diagnosis with higher tumor grade in men with non-metastatic prostate cancer.

BACKGROUND: While older age is associated with higher tumor grade, it is unknown whether comorbid disease burden has a similar, independent association. We sought to evaluate the impact of comorbid disease burden on tumor grade at diagnosis as indicated by biopsy Gleason score. METHODS: We conducted an observational cohort study of 1260 men newly diagnosed with non-metastatic prostate cancer from 1998 to 2004 at two Veterans Affairs Medical Centers. Multivariable ordinal and multinomial logistic regression were used to evaluate the association between Charlson Comorbidity Index score and biopsy Gleason score. RESULTS: Men with Charlson scores of 2 (odds ratio (OR) 1.8, P<0.001) and 3+ (OR 1.8, P<0.001) had significantly greater odds of higher Gleason scores, compared with men with Charlson scores of 0. In a multinomial logistic regression model predicting Gleason 7 vs ⩾6, only men with Charlson scores of 2 (OR 1.6, P=0.01) had greater odds of having a Gleason 7 tumor, compared with those with Charlson scores of 0. In a multinomial logistic regression model predicting Gleason 8-10 vs ⩽6, those with Charlson scores of 1 (OR 1.6, P=0.047), 2 (OR 2.8, P=0.01) and 3+ (OR 2.9, P=0.001) had higher odds of having a Gleason 8-10 tumor. CONCLUSIONS: Moderate-to-heavy comorbid disease burden at diagnosis may be associated with high tumor grade, independent of age, and is a stronger predictor of Gleason 8-10 than Gleason 7 disease.

Time course and predictors of use of erectile dysfunction treatment in a Veterans Affairs medical center.

The objective of this study was to define the pattern and time course of use of ED treatments in a Veterans Affairs (VA) medical center and to identify clinical or demographic variables that are associated with the use of second- or third-line ED treatments. We identified 702 men treated for ED at the Greater Los Angeles Veterans Affairs between 2007 and 2013. We extracted demographics, Charlson co-morbidity score, pertinent surgical/medication history as well as use of ED treatments from medical records. On multivariate analysis, age over 65 (OR 1.83, 95% CI: 1.31-2.56) and Charlson co-morbidity score of 1 (OR 1.77, 95% CI: 1.13-2.77) and 2+ (OR 2.07, 95% CI: 1.28-3.36) were significantly associated with use of medicated urethral suppositories for erection (MUSE)/intracorporal injections (ICI) compared with PDE5i/erection devices. Across all men who used second- or third-line treatments, median time until receiving MUSE was 0.6 years and median time until receiving ICI/implant was 2 years. We conclude that men who will ultimately use more invasive ED treatments, such as men with more co-morbidities, tend to have a prolonged treatment course. This information may be incorporated into a shared decision-making model for more efficient treatment of ED.

Racial parity in tumor burden, treatment choice and survival outcomes in men with prostate cancer in the VA healthcare system.

BACKGROUND: African-American men with prostate cancer typically have higher tumor risk at diagnosis, lower rates of surgical treatment and poorer cancer-specific survival compared with Caucasians. Receipt of care within the Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare system may reduce barriers that influence these disparities. METHODS: We sampled 1258 men with nonmetastatic prostate cancer diagnosed at the Greater Los Angeles and Long Beach VA Medical Centers between 1998 and 2004. We compared African Americans and Caucasians with respect to tumor characteristics using ordinal logistic regression, treatment choice across substrata of tumor risk using logistic regression, and cancer-specific and other-cause mortality using competing risks regression analysis. RESULTS: Multivariate ordinal logistic regression revealed no significant differences in odds of higher tumor risk (odds ratio (OR) 1.22, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.98-1.53, P=0.08), Gleason score (OR 0.90, 95% CI 0.7-1.16, P=0.4) or clinical stage (OR 1.04, 95% CI 0.79-1.38, P=0.8) for African Americans compared with Caucasians. African-American men had similar odds of aggressive treatment as did Caucasians for low-risk (OR 0.92, 95% CI 0.57-1.53, P=0.8), intermediate-risk (OR 0.75, 95% CI 0.44-1.26, P=0.3) and high-risk disease (OR 0.87, 95% CI 0.52-1.44, P=0.6). In competing risks regression analysis, African Americans had a lower but nonsignificant hazard of cancer-specific mortality compared with Caucasians (sub-hazard ratio 0.6, 95% CI 0.28-1.26, P=0.2) and nearly identical risk of other-cause mortality (sub-hazard ratio 0.98, 95% CI 0.78-1.22, P=0.8). CONCLUSIONS: We found no significant differences in tumor burden, treatment choice or survival outcomes between African Americans and Caucasians cared for in the equal-access VA Healthcare setting.

From bad to worse: comorbidity severity and quality of life after treatment for early-stage prostate cancer.

Commonly used measures of comorbidity assess comorbidity number and type but not severity. We sought to evaluate the impact of comorbidity severity on longitudinal health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in men treated with radical prostatectomy (RP) or radiation therapy (RT) using the Total Illness Burden Index for prostate cancer (TIBI-CaP). We sampled 738 men with non-metastatic prostate cancer treated with RP or RT from the Cancer of the Prostate Strategic Urologic Research Endeavor registry. We examined the impact of comorbidity severity on generic and disease-specific HRQOL at baseline and at 6, 12, 18 and 24 months post-treatment. Men with worse TIBI-CaP comorbidity had significantly lower baseline and post-treatment HRQOL in all domains at all time points. In a multivariate model, men with moderate or severe TIBI-CaP comorbidity had significantly worse HRQOL scores at 12 and 24 months after treatment in all domains except sexual and urinary function (P<0.05); in these domains, severe comorbidity was predictive of lower HRQOL (P<0.05). Comorbidity groups had similar absolute declines in HRQOL from baseline to 6 and 24 months after treatment. Although comorbidity groups experienced similar long-term declines from baseline HRQOL after treatment, men with more severe comorbidity had significantly lower baseline scores and therefore poorer long-term HRQOL.