Hypofractionated Boost With High-Dose-Rate Brachytherapy and Open Magnetic Resonance Imaging-Guided Implants for Locally Aggressive Prostate Cancer: A Sequential Dose-Escalation Pilot Study

Purpose: To evaluate the feasibility, tolerance, and preliminary outcome of an open MRI-guided prostate partial-volume high-dose-rate brachytherapy (HDR-BT) schedule in a group of selected patients with nonmetastatic, locally aggressive prostatic tumors. Methods and Materials: After conventional fractionated three-dimensional conformal external radiotherapy to 64-64.4 Gy, 77 patients with nonmetastatic, locally aggressive (e.g., perineural invasion and/or Gleason score 8-10) prostate cancer were treated from June 2000 to August 2004, with HDR-BT using temporary open MRI-guided 192Ir implants, to escalate the dose in the boost region. Nineteen, 21, and 37 patients were sequentially treated with 2 fractions of 6 Gy, 7 Gy, and 8 Gy each, respectively. Neoadjuvant androgen deprivation was given to 62 patients for 6-24 months. Acute and late toxicity were scored according to the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group/European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer scoring system. Results: All 77 patients completed treatment as planned. Only 2 patients presented with Grade ≥3 acute urinary toxicity. The 3-year probability of Grade ≥2 late urinary and low gastrointestinal toxicity-free survival was 91.4% ± 3.4% and 94.4% ± 2.7%, respectively. Rates of 3-year biochemical disease-free survival (bDFS) and disease-specific survival were 87.1% ± 4.1% and 100%, respectively. Conclusions: Boosting a partial volume of the prostate with hypofractionated HDR-BT for aggressive prostate cancer was feasible and showed limited long-term toxicity, which compared favorably with other dose-escalation methods in the literature. Preliminary bDFS was encouraging if one considers the negatively selected population of high-risk patients in this study.