title: Multidisciplinary care in patients with prostate cancer: room for improvement.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  New multimodality treatment approaches for prostate cancer require multidisciplinary management of patients. We aimed to assess the current practices of multidisciplinarity and their possible implications in treatment management in Switzerland.
  
  
  METHODS
  In a survey, urologists and medical oncologists in Switzerland were asked to include at least 25 or 15 consecutive patients with the diagnosis of prostate cancer, respectively. Information about treatment patterns and multidisciplinary parameters of these patients was collected retrospectively.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Thirty-seven urologists and 20 oncologists from the French- and German-speaking parts of Switzerland representing 7 out of 11 non-university tertiary centres and 20/10 % of all office-based urologists/oncologists in Switzerland collected data on 1,184 patients. Sixty-five percent of the office-based (16/24 urologists; 6/10 oncologists) and 95 % of the hospital-based (10/11 urologists; 8/8 oncologists) physicians participate in multidisciplinary tumour boards (MTBs). However, only 1.5 % of patients with a new diagnosis of prostate cancer (13 of 883) are discussed at a MTB. Overall, second opinions at diagnosis are requested in 23 % of patients, mainly from radiation oncologists (8.4 %) or fellow urologists (7.4 %). Second opinions are more often requested by urologists who participate at MTBs and in case of advanced stage.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Participation at MTBs is high among Swiss urologists and oncologists in private practice and at non-university tertiary centers. In spite of that only a small minority of patietns with prostate cancer are presented at MTBs.
authors.affiliation: Department of Urology, Kantonsspital Graubünden, Chur, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Räto T
authors.initials: RT
authors.lastname: Strebel
authors.forename: Tullio
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Sulser
authors.forename: Hans-Peter
authors.initials: HP
authors.lastname: Schmid
authors.forename: Silke
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gillessen
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fehr
authors.forename: Urs
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Huber
authors.forename: Miklos
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pless
authors.forename: Rudolf
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Morant
authors.forename: Ralph
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Winterhalder
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Cathomas
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D003131:Combined Modality Therapy; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010348:Patient Care Team; D010820:Physicians; D011471:Prostatic Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology / Q000532:radiotherapy / Q000628:therapy*; D012017:Referral and Consultation; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013557:Switzerland