ABSTRACT
Preoperative clinical staging in the prostate cancer does not always accurately predict the surgical-pathological outcome. We evaluated how the clinical staging, and other clinical parameters including preoperative PSA and Gleason`s score could reflect on the surgicopathological findings in 30 patients with prostate cancer, who underwent radical prostatectomy. Twelve of 24 patients with clinical T1 or T2 disease were understaged by clinical staging determined by digital rectal examination, bone scan, and radiologic studies including CT and MRI with endorectal coil. MRI with endorectal coil accurately reflected the extracapsular disease only in 59.1% of 22 patients studied. At the same time, it also showed low sensitivity (50%) with high specificity (100%) in detecting lymph node metastasis. Preoperative levels of PSA in patients with P2, P3, and N+ disease were 17.8 +/- 4.5, 47.9 +/- 11.3, 93.5 +/- 20.5ng/ml, respectively. The level of PSA was less than 20ng/ml in 9 of 12 patients with P2 disease, while they were greater than 20ng/ml in 9 of 12 patients with P3 disease. PSA may have a role to rule out lymph node metastasis when its level is less than 10ng/ml, although it did not reach the statistical significance because of small sample size. Gleason`s scores in patients with P2 disease were quite similar to those in patients with P3 disease (5.92 +/- 0.69 vs 5.67 +/- 0.56), whereas Gleason`s scores in all 6 patients with N+ disease were 9 or greater. Neoadjuvant hormonal therapy with LH-RH analogue and androgen receptor blocker for 1.5 to 3 months had no impact on the reduction of margin positivity or downstaging in 10 patients. PSA failure rate in patients with P2 and P3 disease was 25% at 1 year after operation. PSA is a good marker for differentiating between P2 and P3 disease (,p=0.0214) and can safely rule out N+ disease if its level is below 10ng/ml, while Gleason`s score may reflect the lymph node metastasis when it is 9 or greater (p=0.0012). Among the candidates for radical prostatectomy, selection of the patients on the basis of PSA and Gleason`s score might improve the surgical-pathological outcome.