Association of Exposure of Camp Lejeune Contaminated Water and Prostate Cancer Outcomes.

265 Background: There is evidence that exposure to contaminated water while serving at Camp Lejeune is associated with the development of genitourinary cancers including kidney and bladder; however, there is a lack of literature regarding prostate cancer (PC). We investigated disease severity at diagnosis, overall survival, and cumulative incidence of metastases for PC patients within the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) who served at Camp Lejeune. Methods: The cohort included men diagnosed with PC between 1999 and 2022 within the VHA Database. Patients who were housed at or had one or more Military Service Episodes between August 1, 1953 and December 31, 1987 at Camp Lejeune were considered to have exposure. Camp Lejeune exposure status and baseline characteristics were ascertained through the VHA electronic health records. Logistic regressions were used to analyze associations between Camp Lejeune exposure and adverse diagnostic characteristics, adjusted for demographic covariates. The outcome of metastases was identified through natural language processing from cancer or radiology documents. Time to metastases was defined as the time from PC diagnosis to metastases, with other causes of death considered as competing risks. The hazard ratio for the association between Camp Lejeune exposure and metastatic disease was calculated with a Cox regression model, controlling for covariates. The difference in overall survival was assessed with the Kaplan-Meier method and log-rank test. Results: The cohort included 6,918 men with PC, 1,635 (23.6%) of which had Camp Lejeune exposure and 5,283 (76.4%) without. Median age at diagnosis was 65 years. Logistic regression models indicated patients with Camp Lejeune exposure have similar odds of having Gleason Score ≥8 at diagnosis (odds ratio (OR) 0.97, p=0.62) and metastasis at diagnosis (OR 1.00, p=0.997), and slightly lower odds of PSA >20 ng/mL at diagnosis (OR 0.78, p=0.02).There were 803 patients with metastatic disease, 159 of which had Camp Lejeune exposure in comparison to the 644 that did not. The 10-year cumulative incidence of metastases for those with Camp Lejeune exposure was 11.9% (CI: 9.9-13.9%), while for those without exposure it was 14.0% (CI: 12.8-15.1%). The Cox proportional hazards model indicated that those with Camp Lejeune exposure had a similar risk of developing metastases (hazard tatio (HR) 0.93, p=0.43) compared to those without exposure. The 10-year overall survival was similar for those with Camp Lejeune exposure (83.3% [CI: 80.7-85.9%]) compared to those without exposure (82.5% [CI: 81.1-83.9%]) (p=0.2). Conclusions: In contrast to kidney and bladder cancers, Camp Lejeune exposure is not associated with worse outcomes for PC. Further research should be conducted to test whether Camp Lejeune exposure affects the risk of developing PC. However, these data do not support Camp Lejeune exposure playing a large role in PC outcomes.