SEER-Medicare data analysis of patterns of health care spending in prostate cancer

Prostate cancer care has evolved substantially during the past decade, with increasing use of systemic therapies across the disease spectrum. A population-level economic evaluation using SEER-Medicare data from 2012 through 2021 evaluated temporal trends in prostate cancer-related health care expenditures and identified the major components of care accounting for changes in spending. The cohort included 1 231 567 beneficiaries; the mean age at diagnosis were 73.2 years (SD 7.7). Aggregate prostate cancer-related expenditure increased from $504 million in 2012 to $ 1.9 billion in 2021 (inflation-adjusted to 2017 US dollars). The figure shows that systemic therapy became the dominant contributor to spending, increasing from $142 million in 2012 (28%) to $ 1.4 billion in 2021 (74%), driven largely by second-generation androgen receptor-targeted therapies. The authors conclude that prostate cancer spending has shifted substantially towards systemic therapy, highlighting the growing importance of treatment duration and advanced disease management in discussions of health care sustainability.