A study found an increasing prevalence of metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) among an insured patient people, findings that suggest people with the disease are actually living longer. The results were published in Cancer Causes & Control.
Researchers assessed 343,089 male patients with data obtained from a prostate cancer claims database. The population of interest were required to have at least one claim for prostate cancer, pharmacologic/surgical castration, and metastatic disease during the identification period. The index mCRPC date was the first metastatic claim; six months of continuous enrollment before and after was required. Exclusion criteria was defined as any patient with metastatic disease at baseline. Patients were followed until death, end of study, or disenrollment, whichever was earliest. The study took place from 2010-2017.
According to the results, mCRPC incidence (new cases per year) remained relatively constant over the study period while prevalence of mCRPC (total cases per year) increased. Unsurprisingly, mCRPC prevalence increased with age. Moreover, the results showed that total and mCRPC per-prostate cancer prevalence rates increased in monotonic, year-over-year trends from 2010 to 2017, while incidence (new cases per year) of mCRPC remained relatively stable.
“This study found increasing prevalence of mCRPC in an insured patient population during the 8-year period, coupled with stable incidence, validating that patients with the disease are living longer,” the researchers wrote in their conclusion. “With the addition of androgen receptor-directed therapies and poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase inhibitors in recent years, this trend will likely continue.”
