[Invasive prostatic carcinoma with or without positive tumor margins after radical prostatectomy--an indication for adjuvant radiotherapy?]

Abstract

Radiation therapy (RT) following radical prostatectomy (RP) in locally progressed prostate carcinoma has become increasingly important in the last few years as both adjuvant therapy and treatment for a PSA increase in local recurrence of disease. The background for this is the knowledge gained by using PSA that up to 50% of the patients with pathologically confirmed pT3/4 tumors are systemically and/or locally progressive after 3-5 years if only surgical or radiation therapy was performed. A number of retrospective studies substantiated a significantly higher local tumor control by RT after RR. This holds true for adjuvant therapy as well as with a PSA increase from the "zero" range, whereby it must be taken into consideration that a certain percentage of treated patients among those with histologically proven local recurrence actually do not need further therapy. Lengthening the survival time has, however, not yet been proven. With an increase in the PSA from the "zero range" after RP, there are indications that systemic metastatic spread already occurs with values higher than 2.5-4 ng/ml and the RT no longer has any curative intention. A total of three prospective randomized studies on the question of adjuvant radiation therapy are presently being conducted. There are only very little, although interesting, data on the question of radiation therapy in combination with simultaneous systemic hormonal therapy (HT).