This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Vollmer, R. T. Articles by Montana, G. S. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Vollmer, R. T. Articles by Montana, G. S.

Predicting Tumor Failure in Prostate Carcinoma after Definitive Radiation Therapy: Limitations of Models Based on Prostate-specific Antigen, Clinical Stage, and Gleason Score

Laboratory Medicine [R. T. V.] and Radiation Therapy [G. S. M.], Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina 27705; Departments of Pathology [R. T. V.] and Radiation Oncology [G. S. M.], Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina 27705; and Moore Regional Medical Center, Pinehurst, North Carolina 28374 [G. S. M.]

In this report, we use new patient data to test three popular models developed to predict the outcome of definitive radiation therapy. The data come from 240 men with localized prostate cancer and who were treated with definitive radiation therapy at a community hospital. All three models tested were based on the three commonly available variables of pretreatment prostate-specific antigen (PSA), Gleason score, and tumor stage, and we used the Cox proportional hazards model and the logistic regression model to relate these variables to outcome. We discovered that in our data, the optimal way to use pretreatment PSA was as natural log(PSA), the optimal way to use T stage was in three categories: T₁ and T₂, T₃, and T₄, and that the optimal use of Gleason score was as <7 versus 7. Nevertheless, models confined to the optimal use of these three variables leave much uncertainty about important outcomes, such as the probability of relapse within 5 years.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				R. T. Vollmer, P. W. Kantoff, N. A. Dawson, and N. J. Vogelzang Importance of Serum Hemoglobin in Hormone Refractory Prostate Cancer Clin. Cancer Res., April 1, 2002; 8(4): 1049 - 1053. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				R. T. Vollmer and G. S. Montana The Dynamics of Prostate-specific Antigen after Definitive Radiation Therapy for Prostate Cancer Clin. Cancer Res., December 1, 1999; 5(12): 4119 - 4125. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]