Establishment of Korean prostate cancer database by the Korean Urological Oncology Society

Despite the necessity, to date, no detailed database of prostate cancer, especially one that includes clinicopathological data, has been created in Korea. For that reason, the Korean Urological Oncology Society (KUOS) decided to create the Korean Prostate Cancer Database (KPCD).

The KPCD program was introduced in 2010. After considering regional distribution, a total of 20 hospitals participated in the KPCD. The Database consists of 4 domains (demographic, pretreatment, treatment, and follow-up data) and 135 variables.

In total, 7,608 men with prostate cancer between 2000 and 2010 were registered in the KPCD. The mean age at the time of diagnosis was 67.6±7.7 years. The mean PSA at diagnosis was 74.0±366.9 ng/mL, and the proportions of patients with Gleason scores of ≤6, 7, and 8-10 were 37.0%, 26.7%, and 34.2%, respectively. At diagnosis, 62.3% of the patients had localized tumors, 14.6% had regional, 12.8% had distant, and 10.4% cases were from unknown diseases. With regards to the initial treatment modality employed, 1.3% of patients were managed with active surveillance, 62.1% underwent surgery, 4.3% underwent radiotherapy, 27.1% had androgen deprivation therapy, and 5.2% underwent unknown therapies. The 5-year cancer-specific survival rate of patients in the KPCD was 98.6% in the localized stage, 94.8% in the regional stage, 74.7% in the distant stage, and 86.9% in the unknown stage.

The KUOS created a relatively successful database of patients with prostate cancer in Korea. The KPCD will continue to improve the availability of data regarding prostate cancer.