Health Problems

Organ transplant does not worsen prostate cancer outcome

(HealthDay)—Among older men with prostate cancer, an organ transplant is associated with higher overall mortality, but not prostate cancer-specific mortality (PCSM), according to a study published online Nov. 15 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Stanley L. Liauw, M.D., from the University of Chicago, and colleagues used Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results-Medicare-linked data to identify 163,676 men aged ≥66 years who were diagnosed with nonmetastatic prostate cancer. History of solid organ transplant was identified using diagnosis or procedure codes, and outcomes were compared to a propensity score-matched cohort of nontransplanted men matched by age, race, region, year, T-stage, grade, comorbidity, and cancer therapy.

The researchers identified 620 men with transplant ≤10 years before (320 men) or five years after (300 men) prostate cancer diagnosis and matched them to 3,100 men. At 10 years, overall mortality was 55.7 percent and PCSM was 6 percent in the transplant cohort versus 42.4 percent (P < 0.001) and 7.6 percent (P = 0.70), respectively, in the nontransplant cohort. In adjusted models, there was no difference in PCSM for transplanted men (hazard ratio, 0.88; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.61 to 1.27; P = 0.70). Among 334 transplanted men with well-differentiated or moderately differentiated "low-risk" prostate cancer, PCSM was similar for treated and untreated men (hazard ratio, 0.92; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.47 to 1.81).

Source: Read Full Article