Health-related quality of life outcomes from a contemporary prostate cancer registry in a large diverse population.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of patients with prostate cancer up to 24 months after treatment in a contemporary large diverse population.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: Patients with newly diagnosed prostate cancer from March 2011 to January 2014 in our healthcare system were included. The Expanded Prostate Cancer Index Composite (EPIC-26) questionnaire was administered before treatment, and at 1, 3, 6, 12, 18, and 24 months after treatment up to November 2014 for all methods of treatment. The Kruskall-Wallis test was used to compare the distribution of each EPIC-26 domain score at each time point, and mixed models were used to assess the overall scores over the period after treatment.

RESULTS: In all, 5 727 patients were included. There were data for 3 422, 2 329, 2 017, 1 922, 1 772, 1 260, and 837 patients before treatment, and at 1, 3, 6, 12, 18, and 24 months after treatment, respectively. At 1 month, bowel scores were the lowest for patients that had had radiation therapy, and urinary irritative symptoms were the lowest for those who had had brachytherapy. There were sexual function declines for all the treatment methods, with surgery having the steepest decline; open radical prostatectomy (ORP) had a greater decline than robot-assisted laparoscopic prostatectomy (RALP). Patients who underwent RALP had a better return of sexual function, approaching that of brachytherapy and radiation therapy at 24 months. Urinary incontinence (UI) also declined the most in surgical patients, with RALP patients improving slightly more than ORP patients at 12-24 months.

CONCLUSIONS: Patients' HRQoL after prostate cancer treatment varies by treatment method. Notably, sexual function recovers most for RALP patients. UI remains worse at 24 months after surgery, compared to other methods of prostate cancer treatment.