Early Mortality of Prostatectomy vs. Radiotherapy as a Primary Treatment for Prostate Cancer: A Population-Based Study From the United States and East Germany

Abstract

Objective: To assess the extent of early mortality and its temporal course after prostatectomy and radiotherapy in the general population. Methods: Data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database and East German epidemiologic cancer registries were used for the years 2005-2013. Metastasized cases were excluded. Analyzing overall mortality, year-specific Cox regression models were used after adjusting for age (including age squared), risk stage, and grading. To estimate temporal hazards, we computed year-specific conditional hazards for surgery and radiotherapy after propensity-score matching and applied piecewise proportional hazard models. Results: In German and US populations, we observed higher initial 3-month mortality odds for prostatectomy (USA: 9.4, 95% CI: 7.8-11.2; Germany: 9.1, 95% CI: 5.1-16.2) approaching the null effect value not before 24-months (estimated annual mean 36-months in US data) after diagnosis. During the observational period, we observed a constant hazard ratio for the 24-month mortality in the US population