Outcomes for Young Men With Localized Intermediate-Risk Prostate Cancer: An Analysis of the NCDB

Primary management of localized, intermediate-risk prostate cancer consists of radical prostatectomy (RP), radiotherapy (RT) with short-course androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), or RT alone. The purpose of this study was to determine if these treatment strategies have equivalent overall survival (OS) in patients < 55 years old with intermediate-risk prostate cancer.

We identified 35,134 patients in the National Cancer Data Base with localized intermediate-risk prostate cancer treated with RP, RT + ADT, or RT from 2004 to 2013. Ten-year OS rates were estimated by the Kaplan-Meier method. Adjusted hazard ratios (HR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were computed by multivariate Cox regression.

A total of 29,920 patients (85.2%) underwent RP, 1393 (4.0%) RT + ADT, and 3821 (10.9%) RT. Median patient age was 51 years old, and median follow-up was 59.9 months. Ten-year OS was estimated to be 94.2% for RP, 80.7% for RT + ADT, and 85.2% for RT (P < .0001). On multivariate analysis, treatment with RT + ADT or RT was associated with significantly worse OS compared to treatment with RP (RT + ADT HR = 2.06, 95% CI 1.67-2.54, P < .0001; RT HR = 2.0, 95% CI 1.71-2.33, P < .0001). Patients who met all 3 of the intermediate-risk criteria showed worse OS compared to patients who met only one criterion (HR = 1.80; 95% CI, 1.32-2.44; P = .0002).

RP is significantly more likely than RT + ADT or RT to be used as a primary treatment for young men with localized intermediate prostate cancer. RP was also associated with improved OS compared to RT + ADT and RT.