The study, posted online ahead of print in the journal Cancer, found patients treated in county hospitals are more likely to undergo surgery while patients treated in private facilities tend to receive radiation or hormone therapy.
Principal investigator Dr. J. Kellogg Parsons of the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego and colleagues say surgery, radiation and hormone therapy are the most common treatments for localized prostate cancer. Each is associated with different risks and benefits, but there is no consensus as which is the most effective form of treatment.
Parsons and colleagues compared the types of treatments of 559 prostate cancer patients received from public and private hospitals as part of a California public assistance program.
The reasons for these differences in treatment decisions are not known, but the type of doctor that patients see may play a role, Parsons says.
At county hospitals, patients were initially under the care of urologists, while the initial providers at private facilities represented urologists, radiation oncologists and medical oncologists, the study says.
