Background: Men newly diagnosed with localized prostate cancer (PCa) who have a low-risk disease profile are candidates for active surveillance (AS), the process of close monitoring in deferral of treatment if cancer progresses. AS avoids overtreatment and complications associated with prostate cancer therapy.

Despite overwhelming support in national and international clinical guidelines, less than half of all eligible men initially opt for AS. Additionally, some men who do pursue AS eventually discontinue it in favor of treatment, despite no evidence of disease progression. The PATIENTS Program at the University of Maryland Baltimore (UMB) seeks to begin addressing these unanswered CER/PCOR questions by bringing communities together, discussing AS challenges, and identifying areas of future research impactful to patients and physicians alike.

 

Proposed Solution to the Problem: The proposed solution is convening a day-long stakeholder meeting. The conference will bring together members of key stakeholder communities (patients, spouses, caregivers, urologists, etc.) to initiate a collaborative process to ensure appropriate focus (nationally and internationally) on immediate, shorter-term research initiatives. The conference will generate a prioritized list of unanswered questions in the PICOT (Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome, and Time) format that will facilitate meaningful future CER/PCOR centered on men with low-risk PCa.

 

Objectives: The overall objective is to develop and prioritize a list of research questions addressing men considering treatment options for low-risk PCa that will steer future PCOR/CER. To do so, the project team will:

 

Activities: To engage diverse stakeholders and to guide future PCa research, the team intends to:

 

Outcomes include: video recording to be posted to a website and YouTube for general public; one-page infographic for broad distribution to all stakeholders; a co-developed, prioritized summary of PICOT-formatted decisional dilemmas and research recommendations will guide future CER/PCOR. The long-term outcome is the potential for collaborative CER/PCOR through an international working group.

 

Patient and Stakeholder Engagement Plan: The MAB will meet monthly to provide input on all materials related to this project. Patient advocacy organizations, patient support groups, and urologists’ networks will be utilized for survey dissemination and conference marketing. Patient community leadership will be integrated into the leadership and implementation of the project.

 

Project Collaborators: This project will be supported by researchers, patients, spouses/partners,

caregivers, and at least 15 national and international advocacy and research organizations that focus on prostate cancer.