In Organ-confined Prostate Cancer, Tumor Quantitation Not Found to Aid in Prediction of Biochemical Recurrence.

Overview

abstract

In the eighth edition AJCC staging, all organ-confined disease is assigned pathologic stage T2, without subclassification. We investigated whether total tumor volume (TTV) and/or maximum tumor diameter (MTD) of the index lesion are useful in improving prediction of biochemical recurrence (BCR) in pT2 patients. We identified 1657 patients with digital tumor maps and quantification of TTV/MTD who had pT2 disease on radical prostatectomy (RP). Multivariable Cox regression models were used to assess whether TTV and/or MTD are independent predictors of BCR when adjusting for a base model incorporating age, preoperative prostate-specific antigen, RP grade group, and surgical margin status. If either tumor quantification added significantly, we calculated and reported the c-index. Ninety-five patients experienced BCR after RP; median follow-up for patients without BCR was 5.7 years. The c-index was 0.737 for the base model. Although there was some evidence of an association between TTV and BCR (P=0.088), this did not meet conventional levels of statistical significance and only provided a limited increase in discrimination (0.743; c-index improvement: 0.006). MTD was not associated with BCR (P>0.9). In analyses excluding patients with grade group 1 on biopsy who would be less likely to undergo RP in contemporary practice (622 patients; 59 with BCR), TTV/MTD was not a statistically significant predictor (P=0.4 and 0.8, respectively). Without evidence that tumor quantitation, in the form of either TTV or MTD of the index lesion, is useful for the prediction of BCR in pT2 prostate cancer, we cannot recommend its routine reporting.