Prostate Cancer Utilities and Cost-Effectiveness Analysis

The purpose of this study is to help doctors and patients make better decisions about prostate cancer treatment. This research is being done because we do not know how patient preferences for health states related to prostate cancer affect the final treatment decision.

The goal of this project is to incorporate patients' preferences into a previously developed prostate cancer treatment decision-model and to understand the implications for doing so for cost-effectiveness analysis. To do this, it is first necessary to obtain patient utility scores (i.e., patient preference weights). To do this we will perform a survey of patients visiting the urology clinic to undergo prostate biopsies to validate a method of utility assessment, and understand the patients' individual evaluations of treatment-related health studies. We will also ask patients questions relating to their anxiety levels concerning the possible diagnosis of prostate cancer.