In this study, the authors matched data from 2,138 physicians in the American Medical Association database with records on 12,943 men diagnosed and treated with prostate cancer in the SEER database. Using those data, they explored characteristics of both the patient and physician populations than might correlate with potential overuse of ADT.
Not only were Black and Hispanic patients more likely to be prescribed ADT unnecessarily, the physicians who were doing that typically worked in solo practice and were not affiliated with a medical school. In the discussion section, the authors point out that physicians in solo practice are less likely to adopt the newer standards of care, and this study bears that out.
Ellis SD, Nielsen ME, Carpenter WR, Jackson GL, Wheeler SB, Liu H, Weinberger M. 2015. Gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist overuse: urologists' response to reimbursement and characteristics associated with persistent overuse. Prostate Cancer Prostatic Dis 18(2):173-181. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25849354