Oncological and peri-surgical outcomes of radical prostatectomy for non-metastatic prostate cancer with prostate-specific antigen level of 50 ng/ml or greater.

BACKGROUND: The role of radical prostatectomy in treating non-metastatic prostate cancer patients with high prostate-specific antigen levels remains unclear. We evaluated the feasibility and oncological outcomes of radical prostatectomy in non-metastatic prostate cancer patients with prostate-specific antigen levels of 50 ng/ml or higher. METHODS: This retrospective study included 31 patients who were diagnosed as very high-risk prostate cancer (clinical stage of any T, N0-1 M0 and PSA levels ≥50 ng/ml) and underwent radical prostatectomy either as a monotherapy or as a component of multimodal therapy (RP group). Surgery-related complications were investigated. Time to castration-resistant prostate cancer, cancer-specific survival, and overall survival were estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method. A total of 47 patients with very high-risk prostate cancer who were treated with androgen deprivation therapy without local therapy served as a control group (ADT group). Survivals were compared between RP group and ADT group in exploratory analyses. RESULTS: The median pretreatment prostate-specific antigen was 87 ng/ml and 100 ng/ml in the RP and ADT groups, respectively (P = 0.67). Surgical complications of Clavien-Dindo Grade 3 were documented in nine patients (29%). Ten-year castration-resistant prostate cancer-free, cancer-specific and overall survivals were 78%, 81% and 77% in RP group, respectively, and they were significantly better than those of ADT group (54%, P = 0.006; 54%, P = 0.006 and 38%, P < 0.001). Exploratory multivariate analysis identified radical prostatectomy as the only significant factor associated with a better cancer-specific survival (hazard ratio: 0.25, P = 0.006). CONCLUSIONS: Radical prostatectomy is feasible for non-metastatic prostate cancer patients with prostate-specific antigen levels of 50 ng/ml or higher. Radical prostatectomy is a viable option for select patients with non-metastatic, very high-risk prostate cancer.