Radiotherapy of the carcinoma of the prostate

Clinical effects of radiotherapy using 10 Mev linear accelerator were evaluated in 27 patients with prostatic carcinoma. Of these patients 16 were relapsed cases after conventional antiandrogen therapy, 4 were hormone resistant cases and 7 were fresh cases treated in combination with antiandrogen therapy. Prognosis of the patients and the indication of radiotherapy were discussed. The results were as follows: 1) Of 16 relapsed cases, 7 died in the period of 11 - 26 months (average 17.8 months). Seven others are still alive in 6 - 26 months (average 15.7 months) after reactivation. Thus progress on prognosis were achieved in relapsed cases. 2) Local clinical control of the primary disease was good in 21 patients (77.8%). However most advanced cases with distant metastases tended to die of the progression of metastases even if the primary disease was well controlled. These advaced cases should be treated in combination with anticancer chemotherapy and radiotherapy. 3) It was considered that the radiotherapy should be indicative for the localized tumors, reactivation of primary lesion alone and localized metastatic bone lesions. (author)