Mortality in prostatic carcinoma

One hundred forty-seven patients definitively irradiated for biopsy-proved adenocarcinoma of the prostate from December, 1975, to March, 1979, have either died after a median survival of forty-five months or have been followed up for a minimum of seven years. Seventy-six patients (52%) are currently alive, 62 of them with no evidence of disease. Seventy-one patients (48%) have died, 28 without disease. In addition, 12 patients died with prostatic carcinoma but of other causes. In assessing the characteristics of those patients who remain disease-free following treatment, a significant difference in disease control was seen based on tumor stage, histologic differentiation, pelvic lymph node status, and whether or not tumor was present microscopically at rebiopsy. Of those deceased patients with recurrent prostate cancer, more than one-half had distant metastasis only. In all, 61 percent of patients had no further evidence of prostatic carcinoma after definitive irradiation, 20 percent had distant metastasis alone, and only 18 percent had locally recurrent disease along with distant disease spread.