Competing Risks of Mortality in Prostate Cancer

AbstractPurpose: We have observed that in prostate cancer older age, black race, high stage and no treatment are independently associated with higher disease specific and overall mortality. Because disease nonspecific mortality was not examined one cannot reasonably infer that higher overall mortality is largely due to higher disease specific mortality. To understand better the interactions of independent prognostic variables with overall mortality we jointly evaluated their effects on type of death and time to death.Materials and Methods: Using the prostate cancer patients of the 1973 to 1990 public use tape of the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results program, we performed competing risks analysis with multivariate accelerated failure time model to examine if the prognostic factors were associated with type of death and time to death.Results: Older age, black race and no treatment were independently associated with higher relative risk of disease specific and nonspecific mortality. Localized stage ...