Study of adjuvant radiation therapy for prostate cancer

In 101 out of 284 patients with prostate cancer on antiandrogen therapy, external beam radiation was given concurrently. The patients were grouped according to the clinical stage and tumor differentiation. For the whole study population and for each group, the mean survival times of patients with and without concurrent radiation therapy were calculated and compared. This showed that the mean survival time of the patients receiving concurrent radiation therapy was prolonged in the whole study population as well as in each group. However, a statistically significant deference was only found in the patients with stage C cancer and in the patients with poorly differentiated cancer. In these two groups, the patients with and without radiation therapy did not differ with respect to age or the type of antiandrogen therapy. Thus, external beam radiation therapy in combination with antiandrogen therapy improves the prognosis of patients with stage C prostate cancer and patient with poorly differentiated cancer. (author)