A patient newly diagnosed with prostate cancer can easily become overwhelmed by the many options available for treatment and disease management. Fortunately, a new Web site launched by radiation oncologists is now available to help guide patients through their treatment.
CaP Calculator, a free online decision-support tool available only to licensed medical professionals, is designed to provide evidence-based estimates of disease spread and treatment outcomes in men with localized T1-3 prostate cancer. Its availability was formally announced at the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ASTRO) annual meeting earlier this month.
The brainchild of Dr. Matthew S. Katz, chief of radiation oncology at Saints Medical Center in Lowell, MA, CaP Calculator was developed by Katz and prostate cancer specialists at the Harvard Radiation Oncology Program in Boston and was launched in July 2007. The site, www.capcalculator.org, had approximately 1,200 registered visits as of June 2008. Until the ASTRO announcement, knowledge of its existence was strictly by word-of-mouth.
"Newly diagnosed men are typically bombarded with a tremendous amount of complex information. Too often, patients are given treatment recommendations and are expected to be able to determine what the best approach is for them," Katz explained. "Compounding this fact is that urologists, radiation oncologists, and medical oncologists all may have different expertise, perspectives upon treatment philosophy, and sources of information."
Katz believes that a decision-support tool like CaP Calculator improves a doctor's ability to predict clinical end points of interest in prostate cancer. Shared decision-making by a doctor and patient can decrease the patient's future distress and possible regret about whatever treatment decision was made, he said.
As a community hospital oncologist, Katz said that he was disturbed by comments made by his patients about their treatment decisions. "I wanted to be able to eliminate some of the 'what if ...' doubts and concerns I was hearing," he told AuntMinnie.com.
CaP Calculator was developed by identifying peer-reviewed articles with risk assessment tools for predicting pathologic stage and treatment outcomes in men with biopsy-proven, clinical T1-3 prostate cancer. Predictive models were entered into Microsoft Excel tables to provide calculated estimates of extracapsular extension, seminal vesicle invasion, and lymph node involvement.
When data about the patient are entered, estimates of pathological findings are generated. A five-year estimate of prostate-specific antigen outcome after radical prostatectomy, radiation therapy, and brachytherapy is generated. Projections of a five-year risk of distant metastasis and an eight-year risk of clinical failure after external-beam radiation therapy also are created for the patient.
The tool helps both clinicians and patients make an informed choice in view of the complexity of clinical decision-making. "It is a clinical information resource that aggregates clinical research on prostate cancer for the review of multiple outcomes at once," Katz said.
Katz recommends that CaP Calculator be tested in clinical trials to validate its utility. He is currently working with co-investigators at Harvard Medical School in Boston and the Cleveland Clinic to do this.
By Cynthia Keen
AuntMinnie.com staff writer
September 30, 2008
Related Reading
Options grow for treatment of prostate cancer, August 9, 2007
Prostate cancer treatments yield different quality of life outcomes, June 11, 2007
Prostate cancer counseling should include partners, May 4, 2005
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