A national questionnaire survey of Japanese urologists on the treatment perspective for elderly patients with prostate cancer.

Abstract

327 Background: Physicians' attitudes toward elderly prostate cancer patients in Japan remain unknown. So, we conduct a national questionnaire survey of Japanese urologists from a treatment perspective for elderly patients with prostate cancer. Methods: A questionnaire was sent to 922 Japanese urological association teaching base hospitals. The following items were included: years of experience as a urologist, gender, workplace, treatment equipment owned, specialty area of daily practice, specialty area of urological cancer, reference items for treatment of the elderly, upper age limit for radical treatment, medication, and two hypothetical cases of Gleason grade Group 2 prostate cancer with or without oligometastasis. For examined the correlation between experience for urological practice and the answer, “not considering the upper age limit”, Cochran-Armitage trend test was used. For comparison of the rate of answering with “not considering the upper age limit” between variables, z-tests were conducted repeatedly and Bonferroni adjustments were made. In this analysis, the statistical significance was set at a P-value <0.05. Results: Altogether, 1,732 questionnaires were analyzed. The responses were almost equally distributed among all age groups. Workplaces included general hospitals (49.4%), university hospitals (40.3%), and cancer centers (4.2%). Performance status was the most frequently referenced item in treating the elderly, followed by the presence of comorbidities and cognitive function. Furthermore, 13.3% of respondents used the geriatric assessment. There was no upper age limit for total prostatectomy, brachytherapy, and external radiation therapy. Antiandrogens, androgen receptor-axis-targeted agents, chemotherapy, PARP inhibitors, and immune-checkpoint inhibitors were selected by 6.8%, 35.6%, 47.3%, 89%, 62.8%, 24.7%, 41.9%, and 41.7% of the respondents, respectively. The answers for the administration of hormone therapy for hypothetical cases of Gleason grade Group 2 prostate cancer with or without oligometastasis were 96.8% and 61.2%, respectively. The answers for the administration of hormone therapy for hypothetical cases of Gleason grade Group 2 prostate cancer with or without oligometastasis were 96.8% and 61.2%, respectively. Conclusions: Fewer than 10% of urologists used geriatric assessments. Many urologists responded that they would set age limits for highly invasive radical and systemic therapies. [Table: see text]