Inverse Stage Migration in Radical Prostatectomy-A Sustaining Phenomenon.

Objective: To investigate temporal trends in prostate cancer (PCa) radical prostatectomy (RP) candidates. Materials and Methods: Patients who underwent RP for PCa between January 2014 and December 2019 were identified form our institutional database. Trend analysis and logistic regression models assessed RP trends after stratification of PCa patients according to D'Amico classification and Gleason score. Patients with neoadjuvant androgen deprivation or radiotherapy prior to RP were excluded from the analysis. Results: Overall, 528 PCa patients that underwent RP were identified. Temporal trend analysis revealed a significant decrease in low-risk PCa patients from 17 to 9% (EAPC: -14.6%, p < 0.05) and GS6 PCa patients from 30 to 14% (EAPC: -17.6%, p < 0.01). This remained significant even after multivariable adjustment [low-risk PCa: (OR): 0.85, p < 0.05 and GS6 PCa: (OR): 0.79, p < 0.001]. Furthermore, a trend toward a higher proportion of intermediate-risk PCa undergoing RP was recorded. Conclusion: Our results confirm that inverse stage migration represents an ongoing phenomenon in a contemporary RP cohort in a European tertiary care PCa center. Our results demonstrate a significant decrease in the proportion of low-risk and GS6 PCa undergoing RP and a trend toward a higher proportion of intermediate-risk PCa patients undergoing RP. This indicates a more precise patient selection when it comes to selecting suitable candidates for definite surgical treatment with RP.

Increasing rate of lymph node invasion in patients with prostate cancer treated with radical prostatectomy and lymph node dissection.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate lymph node invasion (LNI) rates in prostate cancer (PCa) patients. Recent studies demonstrated an inverse stage migration in PCa patients toward more advanced and unfavorable diseases. We hypothesized that this trend is also evident in LNI rates, in PCa patients treated with radical prostatectomy (RP) and pelvic lymph node dissection (PLND). PATIENTS AND METHODS: Within the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database (2004-2014), we identified patients who underwent RP and PLND. Annual trends of LNI rates and PLND extent were plotted. Univariable and multivariable logistic regression models tested the hypothesis that LNI rates are increasing annually, even after adjustment for clinical or pathological characteristics. RESULTS: Of 96,874 patients treated with RP and PLND, 4.1% (n = 4,002) exhibited LNI. The rate of LNI (2.5%-6.6%.), the mean (6.5-8.4) and median (5-6) number of removed lymph nodes increased during the study period. In multivariable logistic regression models, more contemporary year of diagnosis was associated with higher LNI rate, when year of diagnosis was modeled as a continuous, categorized or cubic spline variable, with adjustment for either clinical (prostate specific antigen, clinical tumor stage, and biopsy Gleason group) or pathological characteristics (pathologic tumor stage and Gleason group), as well as PLND extent (number of removed lymph nodes). CONCLUSION: We confirmed the hypothesis about increasing LNI rate over time in RP patients. This observation implies an increasing rate of unfavorable PCa defined as LNI. This finding is novel for contemporary epidemiological North American or European databases.