Recent retrospective data suggest that brachytherapy (BT) boost may confer a cancer-specific survival benefit in radiation-managed high-risk prostate cancer. We sought to determine whether this survival benefit would extend to the recently defined favorable high-risk subgroup of prostate cancer patients (T1c, Gleason 4 + 4 = 8, PSA < 10 ng/ml or T1c, Gleason 6, PSA > 20 ng/ml).
We identified 45,078 patients in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database with cT1c-T3aN0M0 intermediate- to high-risk prostate cancer diagnosed 2004-2011 treated with external beam radiation therapy (EBRT) only or EBRT plus BT. We used multivariable competing risks regression to determine differences in the rate of prostate cancer-specific mortality (PCSM) after EBRT + BT or EBRT alone in patients with intermediate-risk, favorable high-risk, or other high-risk disease after adjusting for demographic and clinical factors.
EBRT + BT was not associated with an improvement in 5-year PCSM compared to EBRT alone among patients with favorable high-risk disease (1.6% vs. 1.8%; adjusted hazard ratio [AHR]: 0.56; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.21-1.52, p = 0.258), and intermediate-risk disease (0.8% vs. 1.0%, AHR: 0.83, 95% CI: 0.59-1.16, p = 0.270). Others with high-risk disease had significantly lower 5-year PCSM when treated with EBRT + BT compared with EBRT alone (3.9% vs. 5.3%; AHR: 0.73; 95% CI: 0.55-0.95; p = 0.022).
Brachytherapy boost is associated with a decreased rate of PCSM in some men with high-risk prostate cancer but not among patients with favorable high-risk disease. Our results suggest that the recently-defined "favorable high-risk" category may be used to personalize therapy for men with high-risk disease.
Journal of contemporary brachytherapy. 2016 Feb 29 [Epub]
Vinayak Muralidhar, Michael Xiang, Peter F Orio, Neil E Martin, Clair J Beard, Felix Y Feng, Karen E Hoffman, Paul L Nguyen
Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA., Department of Radiation Oncology, Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford, CA., Department of Radiation Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA., Department of Radiation Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA., Department of Radiation Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA., Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI., Department of Radiation Oncology, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, USA., Department of Radiation Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA.