Understanding practice patterns, outcomes, and prognostic factors in patients with advanced prostate cancer

Summary

Client: Janssen Inc.
Project ID: P2019-060 / 2020 0970 193 000

Research Question/Objectives: Patients with advanced prostate cancer may experience a myriad of complications which may contribute to significant morbidity and healthcare cost. The team is interested in examining whether there are geographic variations in the manner in which patients are managed or the type of therapy they receive. In clinical trials, many patients receive many lines of therapy (often 2 or three) but it is not clear whether this occurs generally in Ontario – understanding this will aid in assessing the generalizability of trial results to the Ontario population. The research team is also interested in understanding how physicians order tests for the monitoring and investigation of patients with advanced prostate cancer, both to assess the appropriateness of test utilization for resource stewardship and to assess the potential for delays in diagnosis due to underutilization. The team seeks to characterize these by assessing physician interactions, hospitalizations, procedures, and prescriptions. Finally, utilizing data from OLIS, allows an assessment of the association between common laboratory test and survival in advanced patients with prostate cancer. Validation in the ICES dataset would prove generalizability and lend credibility to the use of these common, low-cost tests, which may improve patient risk stratification and counseling.

Research objectives:

• Understanding geographic variations in care for men with advanced prostate cancer, including consultation with a medical oncologist, consultation with a radiation oncologist, receipt of local therapy, receipt of newer anti-cancer agents, receipt of multi lines of systemic therapy.
• Characterizing the common sequences of systemic therapy used in patients with advanced prostate cancer.
• Understand practice patterns for physicians treating advanced prostate cancer including frequency of laboratory tests and imaging tests.
• Understand characteristics, complications, and treatments of patients with advanced prostate cancer.
• Examine the prognostic role of common lab tests on survival of patients with advanced prostate cancer.

Results:

• Dataset creation plan
• Final deliverable