San Diego, CA USA (UroToday.com) The authors have previously demonstrated that men with prostate atrophy (PA) are independently associated with lower prostate cancer (PCa) risk. However, they sought to further understand this relationship by investigating the connection between prostate atrophy and cancer biology and aggressiveness in patients with both.
The authors retrospectively analyzed 763 men from the Reduction by Dutasteride of PCa Events (REDUCE) study with initial negative biopsy for PCa and positive 2-year repeat biopsy for PCa. They were grouped according to their level of prostate atrophy (mild vs. moderate) on the initial biopsy.
60% of the initial biopsies had PA, with it considered mild in the majority of patients (87%); the remaining 13% had moderate PA. Men with baseline PA had significantly lower mean tumor volume, mean percent tumor involvement, lower number of cores/percent of cores involved, and volume of core involvement. Upon multivariate analyses, all of these held true except for overall percent tumor involvement. When taking degree of PA into consideration, a significant negative relationship between degree of PA and mean tumor involvement was observed.
The results of this study show that a higher baseline degree of PA is associated with lower PCa volume in patients with an initial biopsy negative for PCa and a 2-year follow-up biopsy positive for PCa. Knowledge of this data may be a useful tool in planning treatment strategies as well as patient counseling.
Presented By: Daniel Moreira, MD
Written By: Rahul Dutta, BS; Urology Fellow, Department of Urology, University of California, Irvine at the 2016 AUA Annual Meeting - May 6 - 10, 2016 – San Diego, California, USA