Survival Following Salvage Surgery after Failed Radiotherapy for Penile Cancer: A SEER-Based Study

Salvage surgery (SS) for penile cancer (PC) is indicated in the management of local failure following radiation therapy (RT). Reports describing survival outcome are rare. This study aims to assess survival outcome of SS following RT failure in PC.

We used The Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database to identify patients received SS on the penis following RT. Social, demographic and pathological criteria of the patients were gathered. The 1-, 3-, 5-, 10-year survival rates were assessed.

Between 1976 and 2013, 17 patients received penile SS following RT. Median age was 65 years (range 47-91 years). The mean follow-up was 51 months (range 3-213 months). Sixteen (94.12%) patients received external beam radiation and 1 (5.88%) received combined external beam radiation with brachytherapy. Tumor histology was squamous cell carcinoma in 16 (94.12%) patients and mucinous adenocar-cinoma in 1 (5.88%). The 1-, 3-, 5- and 10-year overall survival rates were 68.8, 35.7, 35.7 and 10.7%, respectively. The 1-, 3-, 5- and 10-year cancer specific survival rate was 72.7, 48.4, 48.4, and 36.3% respectively.

Our results demonstrate, the overall survival of PC patients underwent SS was poor with nearly one third of patients dying within the first year and only one third surviving up to 3 years from the SS.