Purpose: We studied the effect of the combination of androgen deprivation with salvage surgery in patients with radiorecurrent prostate cancer.
Materials and methods: Salvage cystoprostatectomy or radical prostatectomy was performed in 29 patients with radiorecurrent prostate cancer. Of the 29 patients 24 had been treated with neoadjuvant hormonal therapy before salvage surgery, while in 5 an initial trial of androgen deprivation had failed preoperatively.
Results: The positive surgical margin rate for all patients was 31%. Margin involvement correlated strongly with disease specific and disease-free survival. At a mean followup of 5.3 years disease specific survival was 95% in men with negative surgical margins compared with 44% in those with positive surgical margins (p = 0.002). Similarly, clinical and biochemical disease-free survival was 80% in patients with negative surgical margins, while only 44% of those with positive surgical margins remained disease-free (p = 0.05). Surgical margins were positive in 80% of the men in the androgen deprivation failure group and in 21% in the neoadjuvant hormonal therapy group (p = 0.001). The disease specific survival rate after an initial trial of androgen deprivation failed was only 20% compared with 92% after neoadjuvant hormonal therapy was given preoperatively (p = 0.001)
Conclusions: The combination of neoadjuvant hormonal therapy with salvage surgery for radiorecurrent prostate cancer resulted in a low incidence of surgical margin involvement, which correlated strongly with disease specific and disease-free survival. Patients with radiorecurrent prostate cancer in whom an initial trial of androgen deprivation fails appear to be poor candidates for salvage prostatectomy.