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Multidisciplinary care in patients with prostate cancer: room for improvement

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Abstract

Purpose

New multimodality treatment approaches for prostate cancer require multidisciplinary management of patients. We aimed to assess the current practices of multidisciplinarity and their possible implications in treatment management in Switzerland.

Methods

In a survey, urologists and medical oncologists in Switzerland were asked to include at least 25 or 15 consecutive patients with the diagnosis of prostate cancer, respectively. Information about treatment patterns and multidisciplinary parameters of these patients was collected retrospectively.

Results

Thirty-seven urologists and 20 oncologists from the French- and German-speaking parts of Switzerland representing 7 out of 11 non-university tertiary centres and 20/10 % of all office-based urologists/oncologists in Switzerland collected data on 1,184 patients. Sixty-five percent of the office-based (16/24 urologists; 6/10 oncologists) and 95 % of the hospital-based (10/11 urologists; 8/8 oncologists) physicians participate in multidisciplinary tumour boards (MTBs). However, only 1.5 % of patients with a new diagnosis of prostate cancer (13 of 883) are discussed at a MTB. Overall, second opinions at diagnosis are requested in 23 % of patients, mainly from radiation oncologists (8.4 %) or fellow urologists (7.4 %). Second opinions are more often requested by urologists who participate at MTBs and in case of advanced stage.

Conclusions

Participation at MTBs is high among Swiss urologists and oncologists in private practice and at non-university tertiary centers. In spite of that only a small minority of patietns with prostate cancer are presented at MTBs.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by an unrestricted grant from Sanofi-Aventis (Suisse) SA, Meyrin, Switzerland.

Conflict of interest

Richard Cathomas has a consultant role for Janssen Cilag and Sanofi-Aventis. Silke Gillessen has a consultant role for Novartis, Janssen Cilag, Pfizer, Sanofi-Aventis, GSK, and Millennium. All other authors report no conflicts of interest. We hereby state that we have full control of all data and we allow the journal to review the data if deemed necessary.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Urology, Kantonsspital Graubünden, Chur, Switzerland

    Räto T. Strebel

  2. Department of Urology, University Hospital Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Tullio Sulser

  3. Department of Urology, Kantonsspital St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland

    Hans-Peter Schmid

  4. Department of Oncology, Kantonsspital St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland

    Silke Gillessen

  5. Department of Oncology, Southampton University Hospital, Southampton, UK

    Martin Fehr

  6. Medical Oncology, Klinik im Park, Zurich, Switzerland

    Urs Huber

  7. Department of Oncology, Kantonsspital Winterthur, Winterthur, Switzerland

    Miklos Pless

  8. Tumor Center ZeTuP, St. Gallen, Switzerland

    Rudolf Morant

  9. Department of Oncology, Kantonsspital Luzern, Luzern, Switzerland

    Ralph Winterhalder

  10. Department of Medical Oncology, Kantonsspital Graubünden, Loëstrasse 170, 7000, Chur, Switzerland

    Richard Cathomas

Authors
  1. Räto T. Strebel
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  2. Tullio Sulser
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  10. Richard Cathomas
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Correspondence to Richard Cathomas.

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Strebel, R.T., Sulser, T., Schmid, HP. et al. Multidisciplinary care in patients with prostate cancer: room for improvement. Support Care Cancer 21, 2327–2333 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-013-1791-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-013-1791-x

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