Authored by: Frank Stearns, Executive Vice President, HBI Solutions
It’s “Movember,” the month that has been set aside to grow mustaches, beards, awareness of men’s issues (including prostate cancer), and a great time to review some fast facts from cancer.net.
With the exception of skin cancer, prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men, and is the second leading cause of cancer death in men in the United States [1].
Prevalence: 3 million American men are currently living with prostate cancer [2].
New Diagnoses: An estimated 164,690 men in the United States will be diagnosed with prostate cancer this year.
- The average age of diagnosis is 66 years old.
- 91% of prostate cancers are found when the disease is confined to the prostate and nearby organs.
Deaths: It is estimated that 29,430 men will die from this disease this year. Survival rates vary significantly based on age, stage, and localization.
There are challenges with the current screening process, as risk factors for prostate cancer are not terribly specific [3].
Age, race, and family history are influential, as is Agent Orange exposure. Obesity and nutrition have been found in some studies to be related, but not causative, and some research link genetics, including HPC1, HPC2, HPCX, CAPB, ATM and FANCA to the disease. However, none of these have been shown to directly cause prostate cancer or be specific to this disease. Laboratory tests are commonly used measure the levels of prostate specific antigen, or PSA, but only show if something unusual is happening with the prostate, not that a patient has cancer.
HBI Spotlight Analytics Platform can help.
Spotlight provides caregivers with additional information about the risk of prostate cancer to help them determine if additional diagnostic measures are warranted or if lifestyle changes could help reduce risk.
HBI’s Prostate Cancer algorithm is derived from extensive data starting with around 30,000 features, and ending with 60 or more key influences, including: demographics, cost and utilization history, chronic and acute diagnoses, laboratory results, medications, lifestyle factors and community social determinants.
We’ve achieved c-statistics as high as 0.90 [4] and identified population members with as high as a 3 in 20 chance of a new diagnosis in the future 12 months.
Like our other predictive models, it can be deployed in many different workflows including EHRs, HIEs, and Care Management Systems for risk surveillance.
Check out all of HBI’s solutions here.
Take Action.
We encourage you to talk with your doctor about your risks for prostate cancer, and other men’s health issues on a regular basis.
[1] https://www.cancer.net/cancer-types/prostate-cancer/statistics [2] https://www.cityofhope.org/10-facts-all-men-should-know-about-prostate-cancer [3] https://www.cancer.net/cancer-types/prostate-cancer/risk-factors-and-prevention [4] Depending on the population - 0.684 to 0.898