Clinical investigation
Prostate
Comparison of biochemical failure definitions for permanent prostate brachytherapy

Presented at the 47th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ASTRO), Denver, Colorado, October 18, 2005.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijrobp.2006.03.027Get rights and content

Purpose: To assess prostate-specific antigen (PSA) failure definitions for patients with Stage T1–T2 prostate cancer treated by permanent prostate brachytherapy.

Methods and Materials: A total of 2,693 patients treated with radioisotopic implant as solitary treatment for T1–T2 prostatic adenocarcinoma were studied. All patients had a pretreatment PSA, were treated at least 5 years before analysis, 1988 to 1998, and did not receive hormonal therapy before recurrence. Multiple PSA failure definitions were tested for their ability to predict clinical failure.

Results: Definitions which determined failure by a certain increment of PSA rise above the lowest PSA level to date (nadir + x ng/mL) were more sensitive and specific than failure definitions based on PSA doubling time or a certain number of PSA rises. The sensitivity and specificity for the nadir + 2 definition were 72% and 83%, vs. 51% and 81% for 3 PSA rises. The surgical type definitions (PSA exceeding an absolute value) could match this sensitivity and specificity but only when failure was defined as exceeding a PSA level in the 1–3 ng/mL range and only when patients were allowed adequate time to nadir. When failure definitions were compared by time varying covariate regression analysis, nadir + 2 ng/mL retained the best fit.

Conclusions: For patients treated by permanent radioisotopic implant for prostate cancer, the definition nadir + 2 ng/mL provides the best surrogate for failure throughout the entire follow-up period, similar to patients treated by external beam radiotherapy. Therefore, the same PSA failure definition could be used for both modalities. For brachytherapy patients with long-term follow-up, at least 6 years, defining failure as exceeding an absolute PSA level in the 0.5 ng/mL range may be reasonable.

Introduction

Recently, there has been considerable interest in revisiting prostate-specific antigen (PSA) failure definitions for external beam radiation therapy. Since the 1996 American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ASTRO) Consensus Conference which established the three PSA rise with backdating definition (1), multiple criticisms of this methodology have been expressed (2, 3, 4), largely because of the availability of data with longer clinical follow-up and the opportunity to apply more sophisticated statistical analysis. Therefore, to reevaluate the ASTRO Consensus definition and explore other definitions, a second Failure Definition Symposium was held in Phoenix in January 2005. In addition to data on external beam radiotherapy patients, included were failure definition analyses for external radiotherapy combined with hormonal therapy and permanent radioisotopic implant. The goal was to establish a uniform failure definition for all radiation modalities, if possible. The information in this study expands on the brachytherapy analysis contributed to the PSA Failure Definition Symposium.

Section snippets

Methods and materials

Eleven institutions combined data on 2693 patients treated with permanent radioisotopic implant, I-125 or Pd-103, as solitary treatment for T1–T2 prostatic adenocarcinoma. Contributing institutions included: M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, New York Prostate Institute, Arizona Oncology Services, Seattle Prostate Institute, Chicago Prostate Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Massachusetts General Hospital, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Mayo Clinic-Rochester, University of Michigan, and Fox

Results

The median PSA nadir for all brachytherapy patients was 0.25 ng/mL at a median follow-up of 2.36 years. However, PSA nadir was related to the amount of follow-up time after implant such that the median nadir was 0.1 ng/mL for patients with at least 3 years follow-up. In 239 patients who were PSADF at 8 years posttreatment by the nadir + 2 definition, the median nadir PSA was 0.1 ng/mL with a range of 0–2.1 ng/mL. The 75th, 90th, and 95th percentiles were 0.3 ng/mL, 0.5 ng/mL, and 0.8 ng/mL,

Discussion

With the ongoing changes in radiotherapeutic methods and techniques for prostate cancer treatment in conjunction with higher doses and varied fractionation schedules, it is extremely important that a standard methodology to assess efficacy is employed. To compare treatments fairly, a tested and agreed upon PSA failure definition is necessary. While standardizing failure definitions across all treatment modalities for prostate cancer would be ideal, the work reported to date and the analysis

Conclusion

Thorough analysis of biochemical failure definitions for both external beam radiotherapy, with or without hormonal therapy, as well as for brachytherapy for prostatic carcinoma has now been done. The data presented here show that the nadir + 2 definition is the best option for patients with various amounts of follow-up treated by brachytherapy, including for studies with less than 5 years maturity. An absolute definition in the 0.5 ng/mL range could only be applied to brachytherapy patients who

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D.A. Kuban was supported by an Educational Grant from Oncura.

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