Bettina Drake, PhD, MPH, associate professor of surgery, has been awarded a U.S. Department of Defense Prostate Cancer Research Program grant to study “Treatment Options and Survival of Metastatic Prostate Cancer Patients.” The project will look at a prostate cancer cohort from VA hospitals to explore the survival benefit among men diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer who receive definitive treatment compared to men who receive non-definitive treatment. The study will then assess the side effects caused by these treatments that affect quality of life.
In this increasingly younger population with a 30% survival rate, a population-based analysis is critical to develop educational materials, treatment decision aids and implementation studies that build on the lessons learned from this and other ongoing studies. The hope for the next phase of implementation is to significantly improve outcomes for men with metastatic prostate cancer and improve the quality of life for survivors.