Combining Radiation and ADT

The study randomly assigned 263 patients to receive either ADT and radiation therapy or just ADT. The researchers followed the patients for a median of 7.3 years to assess rates of progression-free survival, overall survival, and prostate cancer specific survival.

For men with high-grade disease, a number of randomized trials have established that patients with highgrade disease are more likely to have better results by combining radiation therapy and ADT, compared to radiation alone.

Outcomes in all of these categories were better for patients who had ADT and radiation therapy, especially for disease progression and prostate cancer specific death. The combined therapy approach was associated with a 73% decreased risk of disease progression and a 52% decreased risk of prostate cancer death, compared to men who had ADT alone. The 8-year overall survival rate was only slightly better for men who had ADT and radiation, with 65% of the men surviving, compared to 57% for men on just ADT.

BJU Int. 2019 Apr 4. doi: 10.1111/bju.14768.

Locally advanced prostate cancer has spread out of the prostate and into the surrounding lymph nodes or tissue. The goal of treatment for locally advanced prostate cancer is to stop the growth of the cancer before the disease spreads out of the pelvis, leading to distant metastases.