Prostate cancer grade migration and facility-level treatment trends for grade group 1 disease

Overdiagnosis and overtreatment of low-grade prostate cancer (PCa) reflect poor quality of care and prompted changes to guidelines over the past decade. We used the National Cancer Database to characterize Gleason Grade Group (GG)1 PCa diagnosis trends and assess facility-level treatment variability. Between 2010 and 2019, GG1 PCa incidence had a clinically and statistically significant decline, from 45% to 25% at biopsy and from 33% to 9.8% at radical prostatectomy (RP) pathology. Similarly, active surveillance (AS) uptake significantly increased to 49% and 62% among nonacademic and academic sites, respectively. Decreasing rates of definitive therapies were identified: among academic sites, RP decreased from 61.1% to 25.3% and radiation therapy (RT) from 25.2% to 12%, whereas among nonacademic sites, RP decreased from 53.6% to 28% and RT from 37.8% to 21.9% (P-trend < .001). Declines in the diagnosis and treatment of low-grade disease demonstrate an encouraging shift in PCa epidemiology. However, heterogeneity in AS utilization remains and reflects opportunities for improvement.