Positive proximal (bladder neck) margin at radical prostatectomy confers greater risk of biochemical progression

To identify the prognostic significance of positive bladder neck margin as the sole positive margin after radical retropubic prostatectomy for treatment of prostate cancer.

We retrospectively analyzed the data from patients who underwent radical retropubic prostatectomy at Johns Hopkins Hospital between 1984 and 2001. Of 164 patients with positive margins, 38 had a positive margin only at the bladder neck margin and 126 had a positive margin at one or more locations separate from the bladder neck margin.

Kaplan-Meier analyses showed that patients with a positive bladder neck margin had a greater biochemical progression risk than patients with positive margins at one or more locations other than the bladder neck margin. The 5-year actuarial risk of progression in men with positive and negative bladder neck margins was 69.8% and 33.0%, respectively. A positive bladder neck margin was statistically an independently significant predictor of progression (P = 0.001), along with the prostatectomy Gleason score (P = 0.0001) in the multivariate analysis. The hazard ratio for predicting progression for postoperative Gleason score and bladder neck positivity was 2.1 and 2.5, respectively. Serum prostate-specific antigen values, clinical stage, age, and the percentage of tumor at the bladder neck margin were not predictors of progression in either univariate or multivariate analysis.

Patients with a positive bladder neck margin as the sole positive margin at radical retropubic prostatectomy have a greater risk of biochemical progression than patients with one or more positive margins at other locations, although not as adverse as the risk reported for those with Stage T4 disease.