Relationship between COVID-19 pandemic and early mortality for malignant prostate cancer

We performed an electronic search in CDC-WONDER online database (years 2018–2022) (2), using “year” as the first variable (from 2018 to 2022) and the specific ICD-10 code for malignant prostate cancer as the second variable (C61: malignant neoplasm of prostate). The age-adjusted death rate ×100,000 for malignant prostate cancer decreased from 2018 (7.84, 95% CI: 7.75–7.93) to 2019 (7.68, 95% CI: 7.59–7.76), but then gradually increased in 2020 (7.76, 95% CI: 7.68–7.85), 2021 (7.98, 95% CI: 7.89–8.06), and decreased again in 2022 (7.75, 95% CI: 7.66–7.83). The variation of the age-adjusted mortality for malignant prostate cancer was statistically significant by ANOVA throughout 2018–2022 (f=6.61; P<0.001). In Tukey Post-hoc Test, the increase in mortality for malignant prostate cancer was significant between the years 2021 and 2019 (P<0.001), between the years 2021 and 2020 (P=0.003), and between the years 2022 and 2021 (P=0.002). We conclude that there has been an increase in malignant prostate cancer-related mortality during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, a stark contrast to the improving trend in mortality in the prior years.