Practice Patterns and Patient Experience of Care Among US Veterans with Prostate Cancer: A 10-Year Scoping Review

This study evaluated and synthesized the literature on prostate cancer practice patterns and patient experience of care within the US Veterans Affairs (VA) population. A scoping review was performed according to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews standards. Search terms were prostate cancer, Veterans, treatment patterns, healthcare, resource, patient experience, quality of care, healthcare quality. The search was limited to human studies published in English in the past 10 years (2013-2022). Studies were included if they evaluated treatment patterns, health care resource use, and/or patient experience of care among US Veterans with prostate cancer. Among 150 included studies, most were retrospective VA database evaluations (n = 119, 79.3%) or retrospective cohort studies (n = 8, 5.3%), with the remaining being prospective observational cohort studies (n = 16, 10.7%), randomized controlled trials (n = 5, 3.3%), a meta-analysis (n = 1, 0.7%), and a provider survey (n = 1, 0.7%). Sample sizes ranged from 11 to 214,649 patients. The most common topics were pharmacological therapies (n = 28), racial/ethnic disparities (n = 27), and definitive radiation therapy or radical prostatectomy (n = 24). Some studies indicated Veterans may not have access to the same quality of prostate cancer care compared with the general population. Opportunities for improvement in shared decision making remain. Some findings from this scoping review indicate that Veterans may not have access to the same quality of prostate cancer care compared with the US general population. Research is needed to confirm whether observed practice pattern differences are warranted given the potential negative care impact.