Title

Impact of Prostate Cancer Diagnosis on Noncancer Hospitalizations Among Elderly Medicare Beneficiaries With Incident Prostate Cancer

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-1-2016

Abstract

OBJECTIVES—To analyze the impact of cancer diagnosis on non-cancer hospitalizations (NCHs) by comparing these hospitalizations between the pre- and post-cancer period in a cohort of fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries with incident prostate cancer. METHODS—A population-based retrospective cohort study was conducted using the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End-Results (SEER) -Medicare linked database for the years 2000 to 2010. The study cohort consisted of 57,489 elderly men (≥ 67 years) with incident prostate cancer. NCHs were identified in six time periods (t1–t6) before and after the incidence of prostate cancer. Each time period consisted of 120 days. For each time period, NCHs were defined as inpatient admissions with primary diagnosis codes not related to prostate cancer, prostate cancerrelated procedures or bowel, sexual and urinary dysfunction. Bivariate and multivariate comparisons on rates of NCHs between the pre- and post-cancer period accounted for the repeated measures design. RESULTS—The rate of NCHs during the post-cancer period (5.1%) was higher as compared to the pre-cancer period (3.2%). In both unadjusted and adjusted models, elderly men were 37% (Odds Ratio, OR: 1.37, 95% Confidence Interval, CI: 1.32, 1.41) and 38% (Adjusted OR: 1.38, 95% CI: 1.33, 1.46) more likely to have any NCH during the post-cancer period as compared to the pre-cancer period. CONCLUSIONS—Elderly men with prostate cancer had a significant increase in the risk of NCHs after the diagnosis of prostate cancer. The study highlights the need to design interventions for reducing the excess NCHs after diagnosis of prostate cancer among elderly men.

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