Long-term outcomes of incidental prostate cancer at radical cystectomy

We evaluated the natural history and long-term outcomes of incidentally detected prostate cancer (PCa) at radical cystectomy (RC) for bladder cancer (BCa).

We identified 1,640 male patients who underwent RC between 1992 and 2012. Patients were stratified as clinically insignificant and clinically significant PCa, based on Grade Group (GG) 1 and ≥2, respectively. Survival was assessed using the Kaplan-Meier method.

There were 329 (20%) patients with incidentally detected PCa at RC: 245 (15%) GG1, 52 (3.2%) GG2, 20 (1.2%) GG3, 6 (0.4%) GG4, and 6 (0.4%) GG5. Median follow-up among survivors was 9.6 years (interquartile range 7.5-13.3), during which time 253 patients died, of whom 127 died of BCa and 1 died of PCa. Nine patients experienced biochemical recurrence (BCR), 4 underwent salvage PCa therapies, and 2 developed PCa metastases. Patients with clinically significant PCa were significantly more likely to experience BCR (6% vs. 1.6%; P = 0.04) and had shorter median time to BCR (1.8 vs. 10.4 years; P = 0.01) than those with clinically insignificant PCa. No patients with BCR had greater than pT2N0 BCa or positive BCa margins. Ten-year PCa-specific survival, BCa-specific survival, other cause-specific survival, and overall survival were 99%, 57%, 63%, and 35%, respectively.

In a large RC series, we note a 20% rate of incidental PCa, the majority of which are clinically insignificant. On long-term follow-up, we determined that BCR and PCa mortality are extremely rare events among these patients. Pending validation, future guidelines may consider omission of PCa surveillance for some patients with incidental PCa at RC.