Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2010 Apr 8:5:27.
doi: 10.1186/1748-717X-5-27.

Consequential late effects after radiotherapy for prostate cancer - a prospective longitudinal quality of life study

Michael Pinkawa  1 , Richard Holy, Marc D Piroth, Karin Fischedick, Sandra Schaar, Dalma Székely-Orbán, Michael J Eble
Affiliations

Consequential late effects after radiotherapy for prostate cancer - a prospective longitudinal quality of life study

Michael Pinkawa et al. Radiat Oncol. .

Abstract

Background: To answer the question if and to which extent acute symptoms at the end and/or several weeks after radiotherapy can predict adverse urinary and gastrointestinal long-term quality of life (QoL).

Methods: A group of 298 patients has been surveyed prospectively before (time A), at the last day (B), two months after (C) and >one year after (D) radiotherapy using a validated questionnaire (Expanded Prostate Cancer Index Composite). A subgroup of 10% with the greatest urinary/bowel bother score decrease at time D was defined as patients with adverse long-term QoL.

Results: Subgroup and correlation analyses could demonstrate a strong dependence of urinary/bowel QoL after radiotherapy on urinary/bowel QoL before radiotherapy. In contrast to absolute scores, QoL score changes (relative to baseline scores) did not correlate with pretreatment scores. Long-term changes could be well predicted by acute changes. Patients reporting great/moderate bother with urinary/bowel problems at time C reported to have great/moderate bother at time D in > or = 50%, respectively. In a multivariate analysis of factors for adverse long-term urinary and bowel QoL, score changes at time C were found to be independent predictors, respectively. Additionally, QoL changes at time B were independently predictive for adverse long-term bowel QoL.

Conclusions: Consequential late effects play a major role after radiotherapy for prostate cancer. Patients with greater and particularly longer non-healing acute toxicity are candidates for closer follow-up and possible prophylactic actions to reduce a high probability of long-term problems.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Mean urinary (A) and bowel (B) bother scores in dependence on the baseline scores. A: Baseline score for lower quarter: <70; medial quarter: 70-95; upper quarter: >95. All changes statistically significant (p < 0.05), except changes at time D for patients in the medial quarter. B: Baseline score for lower quarter: <93; medial quarter: 93-99; upper quarter: 100. All changes statistically significant (p < 0.05).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Mean urinary (A) and bowel (B) bother scores for patients with vs. without adverse long-term urinary quality of life (QoL).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Welz S, Nyazi M, Belka C, Ganswindt U. Surgery vs. radiotherapy in localized prostate cancer. Radiat Oncol. 2008;3:23. doi: 10.1186/1748-717X-3-23. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Cheung R, Tucker SL, Ye JS, Dong L, Liu H, Huang E, Mohan R, Kuban D. Characterization of rectal normal tissue complication probability after high-dose external beam radiotherapy for prostate cancer. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 2004;58:1513–1519. doi: 10.1016/j.ijrobp.2003.09.015. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Zapatero A, Garcia-Vicente F, Modolell I, Alcantara P, Floriano A, Cruz-Conde A, Torres JJ, Pérez-Torrubia A. Impact of mean rectal dose on late rectal bleeding after conformal radiotherapy for prostate cancer: dose-volume effect. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 2004;59:1343–1351. - PubMed
    1. Selek U, Cheung R, Lii M, Allen P, Steadham RE, Vantreese TR Jr, Little DJ, Rosen II, Kuban D. Erectile dysfunction and radiation dose to penile base structures: a lack of correlation. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 2004;59:1039–1046. doi: 10.1016/j.ijrobp.2003.12.028. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Pinkawa M, Fischedick K, Asadpour B, Gagel B, Piroth MD, Eble MJ. Low-grade toxicity after conformal radiation therapy for prostate cancer - impact of bladder volume. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 2006;64:835–841. - PubMed

Publication types