Which Patients Report That Their Urologists Advised Them to Forgo Initial Treatment for Prostate Cancer?

To examine how frequently patients report that their urologist recommended forgoing definitive treatment and assess the impact of these recommendations on treatment choice and perceived quality of cancer care.

We mailed surveys to men newly diagnosed with localized prostate cancer between 2014 and 2015 (adjusted response rate of 51.3%). Men reported whether their urologist recommended forgoing definitive treatment. Using logistic regression models, we assessed patient-level predictors of receiving a recommendation to forgo definitive treatment and estimated associations of receiving this recommendation with receipt of definitive treatment and perceived quality of cancer care among men with low-risk tumors and limited life expectancies.

Nearly two-thirds (62.2%) of men with low-risk tumors and 46.4% with limited life expectancies received recommendations from their urologists to forgo definitive treatment. Among men with limited life expectancies, those with low-risk tumors were more likely to receive this recommendation compared with men with high-risk tumors (odds ratio [OR] 3.41; 95% confidence interval [CI] 2.17-5.37). Men with low-risk tumors who were recommended to forgo definitive treatment were less likely to receive definitive treatment (OR 0.48; 95% CI 0.32-0.73) but did not report lower perceived quality of care (OR 0.97; 95% CI 0.63-1.48).

In this population-based study, a majority of men with low-risk prostate cancer report receiving recommendations from their urologists to forgo definitive treatment. Our results suggest that urologists have a strong influence on patient treatment choice and could increase active surveillance uptake in men eligible for expectant management without patients perceiving lower quality of cancer care.