Prevalence and outcomes of focal ablation versus prostatectomy for elderly patients with prostate cancer: a population-based study.

Background: Despite rapid advances in the treatment of prostate cancer (PCa), the optimal treatment for elderly patients with PCa remains unclear due to a lack of high-quality evidence. This study aimed to evaluate whether surgical procedures are beneficial for PCa patients aged 75 years and older and compare the effects of focal ablation and prostatectomy.

Methods: Male patients aged 75 years and older who were diagnosed with Tis-T2/N0/M0 PCa between 2000 and 2017 were retrospectively identified from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program database. Cox regression models were used to test for statistical differences between the overall survival (OS) and disease-specific survival (DSS).

Results: A total of 114,506 patients aged 75 years and older with PCa were included in this study, among which 60,131 died during the study period. The most prevalent surgical procedure for these patients was focal ablation. The local excision rate increased with advancing age, while the prostatectomy rate decreased sharply with age. The proportion of the elderly patients who underwent a focal ablation also increased with the age at diagnosis. The survival rate of patients aged 75 years and older who underwent a focal ablation was significantly worse than that for those who did not undergo any surgical procedures (OS: HR, 1.32, <0.001; DSS: HR, 1.58, <0.001). Although only a few of the patients underwent prostatectomy, the procedure was still related to improved OS and DSS (OS: HR, 0.60, < 0.001; DSS: HR, 0.37, <0.001) rates.

Conclusions: Focal ablation has gradually replaced prostatectomy as the most common surgical procedure for elderly patients with PCa in the United States. However, our results revealed that the procedure might not provide benefits for elderly patients with PCa; instead, we found that focal ablation resulted in increased negative effects on patient prognoses. Elderly patients should have the same opportunity to be treated with standard surgical interventions as younger patients.