A study on the impact of marital status on the survival status of prostate cancer patients based on propensity score matching

Abstract Marital status is an independent prognostic factor for survival in many types of cancers, but its prognostic impact on patients with prostate cancer (PCa) has not been established. The aim of this study was to explore the independent prognostic factors of PCa and to investigate the effect of marital status on survival outcomes in patients with different stratified by PCa. Using the surveillance, epidemiology, and end results (SEER) database, we collected data on 584,655 PCa patients diagnosed between 1975 and 2019. Marital status was classified as married, divorced, widowed, and single. We used the Kaplan–Meier analysis and single multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression analysis to determine the effect of marital status on overall survival (OS) and cancer-specific survival (CSS). In addition, we performed subgroup analyses for different ages, Gleason score and PSA values, and performed a 1:1 propensity score matching (PSM) to reduce the impact of confounding factors to obtain more accurate matching results. According to our findings, marital status was an independent prognostic factor for the survival of PCa patients and a better prognosis of married patients. Moreover, we also found that factors such as age, TNM stage, Gleason score, and PSA concentration were also considered as important predictors for the prognosis of PCa. The above findings can facilitate early detection and treatment of high-risk PCa patients, prolong their life and reduce family burden.