Prostate cancer disease characteristics for foreign-born South Asian men living in the United States

Abstract

We report the largest known cohort of South Asian (SA) men treated by radical prostatectomy living in the United States. Our objective was to characterize this sub-population and compare them to our wider cohort of prostate cancer patients treated with radical prostatectomy in the United States. All patients who underwent radical prostatectomy at two high-volume United States academic institutions at separate geographic locations between 1990 and 2011 were identified. Demographic data, pre-operative Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA), biopsy Gleason score, pathology Gleason score, pathology Stage, margin status, and node status were collected. In addition to SA men, African American (AA) men were identified and used for comparative analysis as a high-risk cohort. A total of 69 SA men were identified in Cohort 1 and 24 men were identified in Cohort 2. When comparing SA men against the entire cohort, no significant difference was found for age, year of surgery, biopsy Gleason score, or path Gleason score for either cohort. However, significant differences were found in pre-operative PSA (P = 0.01), pathologic stage (P<0.01), and positive node status (P = 0.04) for SA men in Cohort 1. Whereas in Cohort 2, SA men had a significantly higher proportion of positive surgical margins (P = 0.04). In all significant comparisons, characteristics were worse in SA men and similar to that of AA men. SA men have worse pathologic disease profiles when compared to the general population of men undergoing radical prostatectomy. SA men living in the United States have pathologic disease profiles that are comparable to AA men.