Scott Tagawa, MD, on Data Regarding Treatment Patterns and Survival for Metastatic Castration-Sensitive Prostate Cancer

CancerNetwork® spoke with Scott T. Tagawa, MD, MS, a professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and physician at NewYork-Presbyterian – Weill Cornell Medical Center, at the 2021 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress about his research into treatment patterns and overall survival in patients with metastatic castration-sensitive prostate cancer from 2006 to 2019.

Of note, although only 20% of patients with metastatic castration-sensitive prostate cancer in this research received intensified therapy, there was a general improvement to length of life. Tagawa suggests intensified therapy, which he described as the most appropriate therapy for the average patient with this disease, should be given to more than just a minority of patients.

Transcription:

This and other population-based or claim-based big databases look at hundreds or thousands of patients up through 2019, even 2020 in the post charted landscape, [and those receiving intensified therapy are] still in the minority of patients. Maybe up to 50%, but a huge chunk of patients are receiving either [androgen deprivation therapy; ADT] alone or ADT plus an old-fashioned nonsteroidal antiandrogen as their frontline therapy. This is despite approximately a 40% improvement in overall survival with those novel drugs being used earlier rather than saved for later. We need to do [more research], not just in this Veterans Health Administration, but in other data sets [including] Medicare and some different commercial insurance plans. I think we need more research into why that’s happening and more education or a combination of both. Providers as well as patients [need assistance] to figure out why patients are not getting the optimal therapy.

Reference

Freedland SJ, Sandin R, Tagawa ST, et al. Treatment patterns and overall survival (OS) in metastatic castration-sensitive prostate cancer (mCSPC) from 2006 to 2019. Ann Oncol. 2021;32(suppl 5):609P. doi:10.1016/j.annonc.2021.08.1122