Take Home:
1- As a man’s quality of life (QoL) improves we can expect that his survival time will increase.
2- QoL needs to be a bigger concern as a man goes through their journey with advanced, metastatic prostate cancer.
At the recent AUA meeting in Boston, MA, Dr. Neal Shore presented a paper describing his findings from a subgroup analysis of the ALSYMPCA Trial, specifically an analysis of the Prior Docetaxel Subgroup. He found that there is a relationship between a man’s quality of live (QoL) and his overall survival when he is given Radium-223 prior to docetaxel chemotherapy.
Using the functional assessment scale of Cancer Therapy-Prostate (FACT-P), Dr. Shore was able to create a time dependent model for change in the health-related quality of life scores. He found that there is a significant association between a man’s overall survival and his FACT-P scores. His analysis further showed that this relationship was true regardless of a man’s previous docetaxel treatment history.
Dr. Shore further quantified his findings and showed that for every 10 points of improvement in the FACT-P scores from baseline, there was an associated 18-21% reduction in the risk of death.
This research clearly demonstrated that QoL is an important measure in men with metastatic castrate resistant prostate cancer.
Clearly, we need to recognize that a man’s QoL is important in the battle against advanced prostate cancer. We spend a lot of dollars on expensive drugs with the sole goal of improving a man’s survival time, but we do not spend a lot of money on finding ways to improve their QoL. Given that a better QoL also improves survival as well as improving the actual quality of the life, why aren’t we more willing to invest time and money in improving a man’s QoL?
Presented By: Neal D. Shore, MD, FACS
at the 2017 AUA Annual Meeting - May 12 - 16, 2017 – Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Joel T. Nowak, MA, MSW wrote this Post. Joel is the CEO/Executive Director of Cancer ABCs. He is a Cancer Thriver diagnosed with 5 primary cancers - Thyroid, Metastatic Prostate, Renal, Melanoma and a rare cancer, Appendiceal Cancer.
