Resource use and costs in the last year of life among Medicare beneficiaries who died from prostate cancer versus with the disease between 2000 and 2007.

6631 Background: Prostate cancer is one of the leading sources of overall cancer care costs among men in the United States. Medical resource use and costs associated with prostate cancer care at the end of life, remain poorly understood. Methods: Retrospective analysis of Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) -Medicare data was used to characterize changes in resource utilization and health care costs to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) in patients diagnosed with prostate cancer who died of prostate cancer vs. non-prostate causes between 2000 and 2007. Results: A total of 34,727 patients with prostate cancer met study criteria. Patients who died of prostate cancer were significantly more likely to have been diagnosed with incident distant metastatic disease (27% vs. 4%) and had fewer comorbid conditions than patients who died of other causes. In the year prior to death, men who died of prostate cancer had lower mean inpatient costs ($20,769 vs. $29,851), resulting from fewer hospitalizations (1.8 vs. 2.1) and fewer days spent in the hospital (12.2 vs. 15.7) and the ICU (1.4 vs. 3.4) as compared to men who were diagnosed with prostate cancer but died of some other cause (all P< 0.001). Men who died of prostate cancer also had lower rates of SNF utilization (32.8% vs 36.2%) and spent fewer days in SNF institutions (11.7 vs 14.7) (both P< 0.001). Conversely, men who died of prostate cancer were more likely to have enrolled in hospice (62% vs. 28%) with higher mean hospice costs ($5,117 vs. $1,981) (both P< 0.001). The substitution of more hospice care relative to inpatient care for men who died of prostate cancer resulted in lower total health care costs ($42,572 vs. $45,830; P< 0.001) relative to men who died from non-prostate cancer causes. Conclusions: Among men with a diagnosis of prostate cancer who died between 2000 and 2007, those with prostate cancer-specific mortality had lower overall health care costs than those who died from other causes. Less aggressive inpatient care near the end of life may explain the differences in cost. Ongoing investigation of care at the end of life is warranted given recent changes in the treatment landscape of metastatic prostate cancer.