Introduction: Although definitive treatment is associated with improved survival for aggressive prostate cancer, a significant number of patients do not receive treatment. To identify gaps in practice, we sought to evaluate sociodemographic factors associated with non-treatment by clinical risk strata in the contemporary era. Methods: We performed a retrospective study of patients with prostate cancer using the National Cancer Database. A total of 954,591 patients diagnosed with localized prostate (cT1-4N0M0) cancer from 2010 to 2020 were included in the analysis. We used descriptive statistics and multivariable logistic regression to evaluate factors associated with non-treatment, stratifying analyses by D’Amico clinical risk criteria. Results: The mean patient age at diagnosis was 65 years. Overall, 26.0% were diagnosed with low, 43.4% with intermediate, and 30.6% with high-risk prostate cancer. There were 131,122 (13.7%) who did not undergo initial treatment, including 82,318 (62.8%) with low, 35,499 (27.1%) with intermediate, and 13,305 (10.2%) with high-risk disease. The proportion of patients not receiving treatment increased over time in all risk groups between 2010 and 2010, including among low (11.7% versus 59.5%), intermediate (4.5% versus 12.5%) and high risk (3.6% versus 5.1%) disease. Compared with White patients, Black patients had lower odds of definitive treatment. This effect was more pronounced for patients with high (OR 0.61, 95% CI 0.58-0.64) rather than intermediate (OR 0.76, 95% CI 0.73-0.78) risk prostate cancer. Asian patients had lower odds of treatment compared with White patients across all disease risk strata (OR 0.84, 95% CI 0.80-0.88) but not high-risk disease (OR 0.90, 95% CI 0.80-1.00). There were lower odds of treatment among American Native/Alaskan Native versus White patients but not for high-risk disease (OR 0.79, 95% CI 0.57-1.10) Uninsured (OR 0.45, 95% CI 0.42-0.47, p<0.001), and Medicaid-insured (OR 0.68, 95% CI 0.66-0.71, p<0.001) patients were less likely to be treated overall. Patients residing in higher income areas had lower odds of over-treatment for low-risk prostate cancer (OR 0.84, 95% CI 0.81-0.87) and higher odds of treatment for high-risk prostate cancer (OR 1.34, 95% CI 1.25-1.44). Conclusions: Among patients diagnosed with prostate cancer in the contemporary era race and insurance are significantly associated with non-treatment for aggressive prostate cancer. SOURCE OF Funding: None.
