“Decision Making with Prostate Cancer: A Multiple-Objective Model with Uncertainty”

A graduate student at the University of California Irvine created, in part, an online decision tool that helps men diagnosed with prostate cancer sort through an intimidating flurry of possible treatments and customize treatment plans of their own. This was published in Interfaces, a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS®).

According to his Jay Simon, who received his doctorate this spring and is scheduled to join the faculty of the Naval Postgraduate School, his research “gives a patient the opportunity to see all the available information in one place and personalize it, tailor it, and incorporate his own preferences.”

Prostate cancer in many cases progresses slowly, therefore men can choose from a variety of possible cares, although, according to the author, two main factors are critical: “First, it is necessary to quantify as probabilities the uncertainties involving death and side effects over time. A decision analyst accomplishes this mainly by collecting and analyzing historical data reported in medical journals. Second, the decision analyst must elicit the patient’s individual preferences and incorporate them into the analysis.”

According to the research there are five treatment options: surgery, external radiation, seed radiation, dual radiation and no treatment. In deciding for one of these treatment options, men must consider the probability of death from surgery and other procedures and the enduring side effects. Therefore the patient should combine their concerns about life expectancy and side effects into scores rating each potential procedure. Choosing for one or other procedures it depends on age, on the cancer’s stage, on the patients’ concern for side effects.

This research is going to continue and expand in another one that would provide a decision-making tool for men over 40 in the initial stages of prostate screening.