Association of the extent of therapy with prostate cancer in those receiving testosterone therapy in a US commercial insurance claims database.
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Conflicting evidence remains in the association of testosterone therapy (TTh) with prostate cancer (PCa). This inconsistency maybe due, in part, to the small sample sizes from previous studies and an incomplete assessment of comorbidities, particularly diabetes. OBJECTIVE: We investigated the association of PCa with TTh (injection or gel) and different TTh doses, and determined whether this association varies by presence of diabetes at baseline in a large, nationally representative, commercially insured cohort. DESIGN: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of 189,491 men aged 40-60 years old in the IBM MarketScan® Commercial Database, which included 1,424 PCa cases diagnosed from 2011 to 2014. TTh was defined using CPT codes from inpatient and outpatient, and NDC codes from pharmacy claims. Multivariable adjusted Cox proportional hazards models were used to compute hazard ratios for patients with incident PCa. RESULTS: We found a 33% reduced association of PCa after comparing the highest category (>12) of TTh injections with the lowest (1-2 injections) category (HR = 0.67, 95% CI: 0.54-0.82). Similar statistical significant inverse association for PCa was observed for men who received TTh topical gels (>330 versus 1-60 days' supply). Among non-diabetics we found significant inverse association between TTh (injection and gel) and PCa, but a weak interaction between TTh injections and diabetes (P = 0.05). Conclusion Overall, increased use of TTh is inversely associated with PCa and this remained significant only among non-diabetics. These findings warrant further investigation in large randomized placebo-controlled trials to infer any health benefit by TTh.
Date Issued
2019-12
Date Acceptance
2019-09-04
Citation
Clinical Endocrinology, 2019, 91 (6), pp.885-891
ISSN
0300-0664
Publisher
Wiley
Start Page
885
End Page
891
Journal / Book Title
Clinical Endocrinology
Volume
91
Issue
6
Copyright Statement
© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is the accepted version of the following article: Lopez, D. S., Huang, D. , Tsilidis, K. K., Khera, M. , Williams, S. B., Urban, R. , Orestis, P. , Kuo, Y. F., Baillargeon, J. , Farias, A. and Krause, T. (2019), Association of the extent of therapy with prostate cancer in those receiving testosterone therapy in a US commercial insurance claims database. Clin Endocrinol. Accepted Author Manuscript, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/cen.14093
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31498469
Subjects
health claims data and diabetes
prostate cancer
testosterone therapy
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
England
Date Publish Online
2019-10-07