Counseling patients about sexual health when considering post-prostatectomy radiation treatment

Prostate cancer is the second most frequently diagnosed cancer in men in the United States. Many men with clinically localized prostate cancer survive for 15 years or more. Although early detection and successful definitive treatments are increasingly common, a debate regarding how aggressively to treat prostate cancer is ongoing because of the effect of aggressive treatment on the quality of life, including sexual functioning. We examined current research on the effect of post-prostatectomy radiation treatment on sexual functioning, and suggest a way in which patient desired outcomes might be taken into consideration while making decisions with regard to the timing of radiation therapy after prostatectomy.

Impact of ultrahigh baseline PSA levels on biochemical and clinical outcomes in two Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) prostate clinical trials

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Background: Controversy exists regarding the outcomes of prostate cancer patients (PCP) presenting with ultra-high (UH; defined as PSA ≥ 50 ng/ml) PSA levels. The objectives of this study were to assess the outcome of this patient population compared to other high-risk patients and to identify predictors associated with biochemical/clinical outcomes. Methods: PCP from two phase III RTOG PC clinical trials (9202 and 9413) were divided into two groups; high-risk patients with and without UH baseline PSA level. Predictive variables included age, Gleason score, T stage, KPS, and treatment arm. Outcomes included overall survival (OS), distant metastasis (DM), and biochemical failure (BF) by Phoenix definition. A Cox proportional hazards regression model was used for OS, and Fine and Gray's regression model was used for DM and BF to test the hypotheses that a difference in each outcome exists between the two groups. Results: There are 401 PCP in the UH PSA and 1792 in the non-UH PSA cohort. Median age was 70 years and PCP were evenly distributed across the Gleason groups (2–6, 7, 8–10) for the non-UH (median PSA 22.4 ng/ml) and the UH PSA (median PSA 72.8ng/ml) cohort. The UH PSA cohort had a larger proportion of T1-T2 disease (p = 0.01) and a smaller proportion of Gleason 8 disease (p = 0.04) than the non-UH group. PCP with UH PSA was found to have inferior OS (HR 1.19, 95% CI 1.02–1.39), DM rate (HR 1.51, 95% CI 1.19–1.92), and BF rate (HR 1.50, 95% CI 1.29–1.73) when compared to other high-risk PCP in multivariable modeling. In the UH cohort, PSA level was found to model risk of DM (HR 1.01, 95% CI 1.001–1.02) but not OS and BF. Gleason grade 8–10 was found to consistently predict for poor OS, DM, and BF outcomes (with HR estimates ranging from 1.41 to 2.36) in both the overall and UH cohort multivariable analyses. Conclusions: UH PSA levels at diagnosis are related with detrimental changes in OS, DM, and BF. All three outcomes assessed in this investigation can be modeled by various combinations all predictive variables tested. Supported by RTOG U10 CA21661, CCOP U10 CA37422, and Stat U10 CA32115 grants from the NCI. This abstract's contents are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the NCI.

No significant financial relationships to disclose.

The impact of the duration of adjuvant hormonal therapy in patients with unfavorable prognosis prostate cancer treated with radiotherapy: Secondary analysis of RTOG 85–31

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Background: RTOG 85–31 was a Phase III trial of androgen suppression for life as an adjuvant to radiotherapy. However not all patients continued on the protocol-mandated long-term hormonal therapy despite no evidence of recurrent disease. This analysis correlates duration of adjuvant hormonal therapy and outcomes among patients who prematurely discontinued long-term hormonal therapy. Methods: The protocol mandated pelvic radiotherapy (60–66 Gy) followed by goserelin 3.6 mg monthly given indefinitely or until disease progression. To avoid potential bias due to early progression/death, only patients who were alive with no evidence of disease at the time of cessation of hormonal therapy were included. There were 377 analyzable patients. Patients were divided in groups based on the hormonal therapy duration (HTD), as follows: = 1 year (27.3%), 1< and =2 years (11.4%), 2< and =4 years (13.3%), 4< and =6 years (10.6%) and > 6 years (37.4%). End-points were overall survival, disease-free survival, disease-free survival with PSA <1.5 ng/mL, disease-specific survival, local failure and distant failure. Cox-proportional hazards regression model was used to test the outcomes among the 5 groups. Results: The median follow-up time of surviving patients is 11.27 years. Pretreatment characteristics by hormone duration groups were well balanced except for age. The median duration of adjuvant hormonal therapy was 3.59 years. For each outcome, there are statistically significant differences among the 5 HTD groups in all outcomes without adjusting for other covariates. Pairwise comparisons show that HTD > 6 year group is significantly associated with having an improved survival and fewer failure events than all other HTD groups (HR < 1, p-value <0.0001). Adjusted for age and stratification variables, the HTD>6 year group remains the only group significantly associated with having fewer failure events in all outcomes. Conclusions: Prolonged HTD of > 6 years is significantly associated with improvements in all end-points studied. Based on these data, decreasing HTD to < 6 years may have a detrimental effect in patients with unfavorable prostate cancer.

No significant financial relationships to disclose.

Providing practitioner-specific outcomes is associated with higher patient satisfaction with information about prostate cancer treatment

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Background: After being diagnosed with prostate cancer, patients must assimilate abundant cancer related information. Satisfaction with Information (SWI) is a patient’s cognitive evaluation of information sources used to understand and select therapy. We sought to describe sources of information used by prostate cancer patients and to identify factors associated with SWI. Methods: 1,072 men with newly diagnosed prostate cancer have enrolled in the prospective, multi-center PRostate cancer Outcomes and Satisfaction with Treatment Quality Assessment (PROST-QA) study. Reports of source(s) of information were documented prior to treatment (radical prostatectomy, external radiation, brachytherapy or combination). The validated SWI domain of the Service Satisfaction Scale-Cancer (SSS-Ca) was completed by patients 2 months following treatment. Relationships between socio-economic factors, demographics, cancer severity, and types of information sources and satisfaction (SWI) were evaluated with multivariate regression. Results: Sources of information endorsed by patients varied by race ( Table ), education, and study site. The most helpful sources of information were description of treatment by a physician (32.8%), books and internet (18.3% each), family/friends (16.6%) and pamphlets/brochures (11.4%). In bivariate analysis internet use was negatively associated with SWI (p=0.025). In multivariable models patient age (p=0.005) and information provided by the physician regarding their own outcomes (p=0.01) were independently associated with SWI. Conclusions: Although a variety of informational sources were endorsed by patients, only printed results for physician’s own patients was associated with SWI. Because SWI is a function of both experiences and expectations, providing patients with a treating physician’s results may improve satisfaction by enhancing concordance of expectations and outcomes.

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