Observations of pretreatment prostate-specific antigen doubling time in 107 patients referred for definitive radiotherapy.
PURPOSE: To determine pretreatment prostate-specific antigen doubling times (PSADT) in patients referred for definitive radiotherapy. METHODS AND MATERIALS: One hundred and seven patients with histologically proven nonmetastatic prostate cancer and an elevated prostate-specific antigen (PSA) who were referred for radiation therapy had three serum PSA values obtained prior to the start of definitive therapy. Prostate-specific antigen doubling times were calculated by linear regression. RESULTS: Prostate-specific antigen values increased during the period of observation in 78 patients (73%). Forty-three patients (40%) had calculated PSADT of less than 2 years and of those patients with pretreatment serum PSA values of greater than 10 ng/mL more than 50% has calculated PSADT of less than 2 years. CONCLUSIONS: A significant minority of patients referred for radiotherapy have calculated PSADT of less than 2 years. The significance of this relatively fast growth rate is as yet undetermined, but suggests that patients referred for radiotherapy may have aggressive disease prior to treatment.
Duke Scholars
Published In
DOI
ISSN
Publication Date
Volume
Issue
Start / End Page
Location
Related Subject Headings
- Time Factors
- Prostatic Neoplasms
- Prostate-Specific Antigen
- Oncology & Carcinogenesis
- Middle Aged
- Male
- Humans
- Aged
- Adenocarcinoma
- 5105 Medical and biological physics
Citation
Published In
DOI
ISSN
Publication Date
Volume
Issue
Start / End Page
Location
Related Subject Headings
- Time Factors
- Prostatic Neoplasms
- Prostate-Specific Antigen
- Oncology & Carcinogenesis
- Middle Aged
- Male
- Humans
- Aged
- Adenocarcinoma
- 5105 Medical and biological physics