Radiation therapy with curative intention in men with de novo metastatic prostate carcinoma: shoot'em all!

About 5% of prostate cancer cases are metastatic at diagnoses. Radiotherapy of both primary tumor and secondary lesions can be, in addition to systemic treatments, a radical alternative for selected patients.

Patients with de novo prostate carcinoma with bone or lymph node metastases were retrospectively reviewed. All patients received moderate hypofractionated IMRT/VMAT up to 63 Gy in 21 daily fractions of 3 Gy to prostate and metastases with neoadjuvant and concurrent androgen deprivation therapy (ADT). According to known advances some patients also received abiraterone, enzalutamide, or docetaxel.

Between 2015-2020, we attended 26 prostate cancer patients (median age 69.5 years, range 52-84) with simultaneous oligometastases [mean 2.1 metastases, median 1.5 metastases (range 1-6)]. Eighteen patients (69%) presented lymph node metastases, 4 (15.5%) bone metastases and 4 (15.5%) both lymph node and bone metastases. With a median follow-up of 15.5 months (range 3-65 months), 16 patients (62%) are alive and tumor free while 10 (38%) are alive with tumor. Four patients (17%) developed tumor progression, out of irradiated area in all cases, with a median time to progression of 43.5 months (range 27-56 months). Actuarial progression-free survival (PFS) rates at 12 and 24 months were 94.1% and 84.7%, respectively. No grade > 2 acute or late complications were recorded.

Simultaneous directed radical hypofractionated radiation therapy for prostate and metastases is feasible, well tolerated and achieves an acceptable PFS rate. However, further studies with longer follow-up are necessary to definitively address these observations.