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Background It is unknown if a period of active surveillance before prostatectomy for prostate cancer (PCa) worsens functional outcomes. The aim of this study was to compare functional outcomes after primary vs delayed robot-assisted radical prostatectomy.Methods We included men registered in the National Prostate Cancer Register of Sweden with low and favorable intermediate-risk PCa who underwent robot-assisted prostatectomy in 2018-2020 and had filled a questionnaire on patient-reported outcome measures. Multivariable logistic regression analysis was used to compare the functional outcomes of primary and delayed prostatectomy.Results 2571 men underwent primary, and 921 men underwent delayed prostatectomy. Delayed prostatectomy was not associated with reduced overall quality of life (adjusted Odds Ratio [OR] 1.04; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.71-1.55) or erectile dysfunction (adjusted OR 0.90, 95% CI 0.69-1.22). Urinary incontinence was slightly more common after delayed prostatectomy (15% vs 11%; adjusted OR 1.38, 95% CI 0.91-2.01). There were weak associations between time to prostatectomy and urinary symptoms and bother, with a 3% annual increase in the risk for urinary incontinence (adjusted OR 1.03; 95% CI 0.94-1.13).Conclusion These results suggest that a period on active surveillance before robot-assisted radical prostatectomy has little detrimental effect on functional outcomes. Since only around half of men on active surveillance will transit to prostatectomy, these outcomes represent a worst-case scenario for men who start active surveillance. These results support the use of active surveillance for men with low-risk and favorable intermediate-risk PCa.

Background: Swedish national guidelines provide evidence-based recommendations for standard of care; however, little is known about adherence to them. The aim of this study was to assess adherence to management guidelines for prostate cancer (PCa).

Materials and methods: Data in the National Prostate Cancer Register (NPCR), that includes 98% of all incident PCa cases in Sweden, were used to analyse adherence to national PCa guidelines for men diagnosed between 2010 and 2023. A selection of quality indicators displayed on the public web page of NPCR were assessed.

Results: Active surveillance in men with low-risk PCa and an estimated life expectancy >10 years increased from 44% in 2010 to 88% in 2023. Radical treatment for men with localised high-risk PCa and life expectancy >10 years increased from 60% in 2010 to 86% in 2023 and for men with locally advanced PCa and life expectancy >5 years from 37% in 2010 to 64% in 2023. The proportion of radical prostatectomies for low- or intermediate-risk PCa performed with nerve-sparing technique increased from 61% in 2015 to 87% in 2023. Use of adjuvant androgen deprivation therapy after radiotherapy for men with high-risk or locally advanced PCa increased five-fold from 14% in 2010 to 73% in 2022.

Conclusion: Adherence to recommendations in national guidelines improved in Sweden between 2010 and 2023. Public, open reporting of NPCR data on adherence to guidelines down to department level is likely to have contributed to these improvements.

 Objective

To identify predictors of metastases, estimate the proportion of metastatic clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) cases according to these predictors, and subsequently create a risk table showing the absolute difference in metastasis proportion for each 10 mm increase in tumour size.

Patients and Methods

Patients diagnosed with histopathological confirmed ccRCC in 2010–2018 in Denmark identified in the nationwide Danish Multidisciplinary Renal Cancer Group (DaRenCa) Study-3. Association between diagnostic variables and metastases were assessed with logistic regression analyses. Proportion of cases with metastases were assess based on tumour sizes using a logistic regression model.

Results

The study included 2109 cases with non-metastatic ccRCC at diagnosis and 450 cases with metastatic ccRCC. Multivariable logistic regression analyses found sex, tumour size and grade were associated with metastatic ccRCC, whereas age was not. The proportion of cases with metastasis increased with larger tumours sizes and higher grade. As an example, the proportion of metastases in female cases with tumour size of 40 mm was 2.9% (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.7–4.8%) in Grade 1 and 16% (95% CI 12–22%) in cases with Grade 4. Comparable numbers in cases with a tumour size of 70 mm were 6.6% (95% CI 4.0–11%) and 31% (95% CI 25–38). The absolute increase in the proportion of cases with metastases with a 10 mm increase in size was <2% for tumours <40 mm and Grade 1–2. In contrast, cases with tumour sizes >50 mm and/or Grade 3–4 had a moderate (2–<4%) to high (≥4%) absolute increase in the proportion of cases with metastases with each 10 mm increase.

Conclusion

The risk table presented offers a valuable tool for discussing the risk of progression to metastases in patients under expected management for ccRCC, enabling clinicians to make more informed, evidence-based decisions.

Background

We determined the impact of an increased two-stool faecal immunochemical test (FIT) cut-off on colonoscopy positivity and relative sensitivity and specificity in the randomized controlled screening trial screening of Swedish colons conducted in Sweden.

Methods

We performed a cross-sectional analysis of participants in the FIT arm that performed FIT between March 2014 and 2020 within the study registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT02078804, who had a faecal haemoglobin concentration of at least 10 µg/g in at least one of two stool samples and who underwent a colonoscopy (n = 3841). For each increase in cut-off, we computed the positive predictive value (PPV), numbers needed to scope (NNS), sensitivity and specificity for finding colorectal cancer (CRC) and advanced neoplasia (AN; advanced adenoma or CRC) relative to cut-off 10 µg/g.

Results

The PPV for AN increased from 23.0% (95% confidence intervals [CI]: 22.3%–23.6%) at cut-off 10 µg/g to 28.8% (95% CI: 27.8%–29.7%) and 33.1% (95% CI: 31.9%–34.4%) at cut-offs 20 and 40 µg/g, respectively, whereas the NNS to find a CRC correspondingly decreased from 41 to 27 and 19. The PPV for AN was higher in men than women at each cut-off, for example 31.5% (95% CI: 30.1%–32.8%) in men and 25.6% (95% CI: 24.3%–27.0%) in women at 20 µg/g. The relative sensitivity and relative specificity were similar in men and women at each cut-off.

Conclusion

A low cut-off of around 20–40 µg/g allows detection and removal of many AN compared to 10 µg/g while reducing the number of colonoscopies in both men and women.

Background

Socioeconomic inequalities in the uptake of colorectal cancer screening are well documented, but the implications on inequities in health gain remain unclear.

Methods

Sixty-year-olds were randomly recruited from the Swedish population between March 2014 and March 2020 and invited to undergo either 2 rounds of fecal immunochemical testing (FIT) 2 years apart (n = 60 137) or primary colonoscopy just once (n = 30 400). By linkage to Statistics Sweden’s registries, we obtained socioeconomic data. In each defined socioeconomic group, we estimated the cumulative yield of advanced neoplasia in each screening arm (intention-to-screen analysis). In the biennial FIT arm, we predicted the probability of exceeding the yield in the primary colonoscopy arm by linear extrapolation of the cumulative yield to (hypothetical) additional rounds of FIT.

Results

In the lowest income group, the yield of advanced neoplasia was 1.63% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.35% to 1.93%) after 2 rounds of FIT vs 1.93% (95% CI = 1.49% to 2.40%) in the primary colonoscopy arm. Extrapolation to a third round of FIT implied a 86% probability of exceeding the yield in the primary colonoscopy arm. In the highest income group, we found a more pronounced yield gap between the 2 screening strategies—2.32% (95% CI = 2.15% to 2.49%) vs 3.71% (95% CI = 3.41% to 4.02%)— implying a low (2%) predicted probability of exceeding yield after a third round of FIT.

Conclusions

Yield of advanced neoplasia from 2 rounds of FIT 2 years apart was poorer as compared with primary colonoscopy, but the difference was less in lower socioeconomic groups.

Assessment of comorbidity is crucial for confounding adjustment and prediction of mortality in register-based studies, but the commonly used Charlson comorbidity index is not sufficiently predictive. We aimed to develop a multidimensional diagnosis-based comorbidity index (MDCI) that captures comorbidity better than the Charlson Comorbidity index. The index was developed based on 286,688 men free of prostate cancer randomly selected from the Swedish general population, and validated in 54,539 men without and 68,357 men with prostate cancer. All ICD-10 codes from inpatient and outpatient discharges during 10 years prior to the index date were used to define variables indicating frequency of code occurrence, recency, and total duration of related hospital admissions. Penalized Cox regression was used to predict 10-year all-cause mortality. The MDCI predicted risk of death better than the Charlson comorbidity index, with a c-index of 0.756 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.751, 0.762) vs 0.688 (95% CI = 0.683, 0.693) in the validation cohort of men without prostate cancer. Men in the lowest vs highest MDCI quartile had distinctively different survival in the validation cohort of men with prostate cancer, with an overall hazard ratio [HR] of 5.08 (95% CI = 4.90, 5.26). This was also consistent within strata of age and Charlson comorbidity index, e.g. HR = 5.90 (95% CI = 4.65, 7.50) in men younger than 60 years with CCI 0. These results indicate that comorbidity assessment in register-based studies can be improved by use of all ICD-10 codes and taking related frequency, recency, and duration of hospital admissions into account.