OBJECTIVES: Prostate cancer is the second most prevalent cancer in the United States.  There are a number of different treatment options, and physicians develop treatment plans based on various factors such as tumor type and size, cancer stage, speed of disease progression, patient life expectancy, and patient preference. The objective of this study was to identify recent national treatment patterns for patients with prostate cancer. METHODS: A retrospective, cross-sectional study, which pooled data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS) and the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS) from 2006 to 2010, was conducted. Patient visits were categorized as those where only hormone therapy was mentioned during the visit; those during which only chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy was mentioned; those where both hormone therapy and chemotherapy/radiation therapy were mentioned; and those during which none of these treatments was mentioned. Descriptive statistics were computed using appropriate statistical procedures for the NAMCS and NHAMCS databases with their unique sampling designs.   RESULTS: From 2006 to 2010, there were 17.8 million physician-office and outpatient-clinic visits by patients with prostate cancer, of which 17% had a hormone drug mentioned only, 5% mentioned only chemotherapy or radiation therapy, 1% mentioned both, and 77% mentioned neither (where “neither” might indicate a surgical consult or a patient who was undergoing active surveillance or watchful waiting). Whereas hormone therapy was mentioned in 38.7% of visits by patients in Stage 2 or 3, it was mentioned in only 9.3% of visits by Stage-4 patients. Whereas only 2.7% of visits to urologists mentioned chemotherapy or radiation therapy, the counterpart percentage for oncologists was 13.9%.  CONCLUSIONS: During the vast majority of prostate-cancer-patient visits to either physician offices or outpatient clinics, there was no mention of treatment.  During visits where treatment was mentioned, hormone therapy was mentioned most often.