Prognosis in patients with local recurrence after definitive irradiation for prostatic carcinoma

Of 414 patients with Stage A2-C disease, all with a minimum follow-up period of 3 years, who have been definitively irradiated by external beam therapy or iodine-125 (I-125) implantation for biopsy-proven prostatic adenocarcinoma, 83 patients (20%) have experienced local recurrences. The incidence of distant metastasis was significantly higher in patients with local tumor recurrence (56 of 83; 68%), as compared with those with local control (64 of 331; 19%; P less than 0.001). This difference remained significant within each tumor grade and stage. Subsequently, survival in patients with local recurrence was significantly shorter than in those with local tumor control (66% vs. 89% at 5 years; P = 0.001). Of the 83 patients with local tumor recurrence, 56 had local recurrence and distant metastasis, and 27 had local failure alone, with a median follow-up of 76 months for the latter group. Fifteen of 83 patients with local recurrence (18%) developed major complications secondary to local disease. Three of the 83 (4%) patients were known to die of prostatic recurrence alone and another 11 of 83 (13%) as a result of some combination of local and distant disease. Therefore, in reference to the entire group of definitively irradiated patients, only 0.72% expired solely of complications associated with local tumor recurrence and an additional 2.7% expired of a combination of both local and distant disease.