[Current studies of combined radiotherapy-hormone therapy in localized and locally advanced prostatic cancers]

In locally advanced prostate cancer three clinical randomized trials have shown that external irradiation combined with LHRH analogue with or without antiandrogen improved survival: disease-free survival, local recurrence-free survival, metastasis-free survival (P < 0.001). EORTC trial 22863 alone has shown a significant improvement of overall survival (P = 0.001), with an LHRH analogue (goserilin acetate, zoladex) started the first day of irradiation and followed every 4 weeks for 3 years; for RTOG trial 85-31 the same LHRH analogue started during the last week of irradiation and given until relapse increases survival of patients with poor differentiated tumours with gleason score ranging from 8 to 10 (P = 0.03). In locally confined prostate carcinoma randomized trials are ongoing to assess the impact of conventional irradiation or three dimensional conformal radiotherapy with or without adjuvant hormonotherapy.