Causes of death in men with prostate cancer: Results from the Danish Prostate Cancer Registry (DAPROCAdata)

BACKGROUND: Current knowledge of the validity of registry data on prostate cancer-specific death is limited. We aimed to determine the underlying cause of death among Danish men with prostate cancer, to estimate the level of misattribution of prostate cancer death, and to examine the risk of death from prostate cancer when accounting for competing risk of death.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: We investigated a nationwide cohort of 15,878 prostate cancer patients diagnosed in 2010-2014; with 3343 deaths occurring through 2016. Blinded medical chart review was carried out for 670 deaths and compared to the national cause of death registry. Five death categories were defined: 1) prostate cancer-specific death, 2) other unspecified urological cancer death, 3) other cancer death 4) cardiovascular disease death, and 5) other causes of death. Competing risk analyses compared Cox cause-specific and Fine-Gray regression models.

RESULTS: Chart review attributed 51.2% of deaths to prostate cancer, 17.0% to cardiovascular disease, and 16.7% to other causes. The Danish Register of Causes of Death attributed 71.7% of deaths to prostate cancer when including all registered contributing causes of death, and 57.0% of deaths when including only the primary registered cause of death. The probability of death by prostate cancer was 10% at 2-year survival.

CONCLUSIONS: More than half of the deceased men in our study cohort died of their prostate cancer disease within a mean of 2.4 years of follow up. Data from the death registry is prone to misclassification, potentially overestimating the proportion of deaths from prostate cancer.