Preoperative androgen deprivation therapy for localized prostate cancer: delayed biochemical recurrence in high-risk disease

Background: The role of preoperative ADT for localized prostate cancer is controversial; prospective assessments have yielded varying results. We sought to define a subset of patients with a higher likelihood of benefit from preoperative ADT.

Patients and methods: An institutional database including consecutive patients receiving definitive surgery for localized prostate cancer was interrogated. Patients recorded as having received preoperative ADT were matched in a 1:2 fashion to patients who had not received previous ADT. Patients were matched on the basis of clinicopathologic characteristics, use of adjuvant treatment strategies, and duration of prostate-specific antigen follow-up. Time to biochemical recurrence (TTBR) was compared using the Kaplan-Meier method and log-rank test for the overall study population and in subsets defined according to D'Amico risk.

Results: No significant differences in clinicopathologic characteristics were noted between recipients (n = 101) and matched nonrecipients (n = 196) of preoperative ADT. Although not statistically significant, positive surgical margin rates, seminal vesicle invasion, and extracapsular extension were less frequent in patients receiving preoperative ADT. Furthermore, a lesser incidence of perioperative complications was noted in this group (7.4% vs. 18.4%). No significant differences were noted in TTBR between recipients and nonrecipients of preoperative ADT in the overall study population. However, among patients with high-risk disease, TTBR was significantly longer in patients who had received preoperative ADT (P = .004).

Conclusion: The data presented herein suggest a potential benefit of preoperative ADT in patients with high-risk localized prostate cancer. Consideration should be given to enriching for this subset in preoperative studies of novel endocrine therapies.