The impact of marital status on the survival of transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder.

Abstract

578 Background: Marital status is one of the multiple lifestyle factors that affect the survival of several malignancies. Prior literature has demonstrated that married individuals have better survival in cases of transitional cell carcinoma (TCC). In this study, we aim to demonstrate the association in a large cohort of patients. Methods: Data of TCC patients with known marital status who were diagnosed between 1973 and 2015 in the US was obtained using the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database. We compared the overall and cancer-specific survival of patients according to their marital status using Kaplan-Meier test and multivariable covariate-adjusted Cox models. Results: We reviewed 204,862 TCC patients, of which 64.26%, 10.64%, 1.01%, 7.31%, and 16.78% were married, single, separated, divorced, and widowed, respectively. Married patients had the highest overall survival (median 123 months), followed by single patients (median 111 months), divorced (median 102 months), separated (median 60 months), and widowed (median 43 months). Bladder cancer-specific survival followed relatively similar trends with married patients having significantly better survival when compared to other groups. When we adjusted for age, sex, race, stage, grade, and undergoing cancer-targeted surgery, married patients had better survival outcomes when compared to single patients (HR = 1.322, p-value < 0.001), separated patients (HR = 1.409, p-value < 0.001), divorced patients (HR = 1.358, p-value < 0.001), and widowed patients (HR = 1.242, p-value < 0.001). Conclusions: Our results demonstrate a clear survival advantage in cases of transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder with married individuals having the highest overall and cancer-specific median survival. These results shed the light on the lifestyle and the psychosocial factors, including the social support that married patients may have comparing to unmarried patients, and their effect on the disease prognosis and survival. Understanding the social and psychological factors associated with the observed disparity may help enhance management plans for affected patients.