Newswise — ST. LOUIS — Research from Saint Louis University School of Medicine finds improvements in survival in both veterans and men across the country over the last 20 years in metastatic prostate cancer, which correlate with new hormonal treatments. Martin Schoen, M.
D. , assistant professor of medicine and a member of the Saint Louis University AHEAD Institute , quantified trends in overall survival among men newly diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer and has revealed his findings in a recent research letter in JAMA Network Open . Metastatic prostate cancer accounts for 5–10% of all prostate cancer diagnoses, but it is responsible for nearly 50% of prostate cancer-related deaths.
Since 2015, the prognosis of metastatic prostate cancer has improved with the introduction of new hormonal treatment and chemotherapy combined with androgen deprivation therapy in the first-line setting. “In the last 10 years, several new therapies have been created that have made a dramatic impact in clinical trials,” said Schoen, lead author of the study. “We wanted to study this in the general population to assess whether these breakthroughs were making its way to them.
” The study reviewed two national datasets to identify the health outcomes of men with prostate cancer, one of the most common cancers in veterans. The cross-sectional retrospective study included male patients first diagnosed with prostate cancer between the years 2000-2019. Schoen and his team analyzed datas.