Far from the truth: Real‐world treatment patterns among newly diagnosed metastatic prostate cancer in the era of treatment intensification

OBJECTIVES: Real-world uptake of treatment intensification (TI) with novel hormonal agents (NHA) or chemotherapy as treatment of metastatic prostate cancer remains low outside of trial settings. We aim to report the prescription patterns and treatment outcomes of de novo metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer (mHSPC) in a tertiary institution. METHODS: This is a retrospective cohort study using real-world data from a prospectively maintained prostate cancer registry. We selected patients newly diagnosed with mHSPC from January 2016 to December 2020. Clinicopathological parameters were recorded to determine their impact on prescription patterns. RESULTS: In total, 585 patients with metastatic prostate cancer were identified. Prescription of NHA increased from 10.5% (2016) to 50.4% (2020), but that of chemotherapy declined. Factors associated with TI were (1) baseline health status: Charlson Comorbidity Index 0-2, ECOG 0-1, age ≤ 65, (2) disease burden: PSA (>400, CHAARTED high volume disease, p = 0.004), development of systemic complications and (3) physician factor: primary physician being uro-oncologist and medical oncologist versus general urologist. Patients with TI had a longer mean time to castration-resistant prostate cancer (45.0 vs. 32.5 months, HR 0.567, 95% CI: 0.441-0.730, p < 0.001) and overall survival (55.3 vs. 46.8 months, HR 0.612, 95% CI, 0.447-0.837, p = 0.001). CONCLUSION: This study demonstrated the trend of treatment prescription of mHSPC and factors contributing to the use of TI. TI improved mean time to CRPC and OS.