Transurethral resection of the prostate for patients with Gleason score 6 prostate cancer and symptomatic prostatic enlargement: a risk-adaptive strategy for the era of active surveillance

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether transurethral resection of the prostate can be used as both (i) treatment for symptomatic prostatic enlargement in patients with prostate cancer and (ii) a risk-adaptive strategy for reducing prostate-specific antigen levels and broadening the indications of active surveillance.

METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed data of 3680 patients who underwent prostate biopsies at a single institution (March 2006 to January 2012). Of 529 men who had Gleason score 6 prostate cancer and were ineligible for active surveillance, 86 (16.3%) underwent transurethral resection of the prostate for symptomatic prostatic enlargement. We assessed how changes in prostate-specific antigen and prostate-specific antigen density influenced the eligibility for active surveillance and the outcome of subsequent therapy. The following active surveillance criteria were used: prostate-specific antigen ≤ 10 ng/ml, prostate-specific antigen density ≤ 0.15, positive cores ≤ 3 and single core involvement ≤ 50%.

RESULTS: The median age, pre-operative prostate-specific antigen and prostate volume were 71 years, 6.95 ng/ml, and 45.8 g, respectively. In 82.6% (71/86) of analyzed cases, ineligibility for active surveillance had resulted from elevated prostate-specific antigen level or prostate-specific antigen density. With a median resection of 16.5 g, transurethral resection of the prostate reduced the percentage of prostate-specific antigen and the percentage of prostate-specific antigen density by 34.5 and 50.0%, respectively, making 81.7% (58/71) of the patients eligible for active surveillance. Prostate-specific antigen level remained stabilized in all (21/21) patients maintained on active surveillance without disease progression during the median follow-up of 50.6 months. Among patients who underwent radical prostatectomy, 96.7% (29/30) exhibited localized disease.

CONCLUSIONS: Risk-adaptive transurethral resection of the prostate may prevent overtreatment and allay prostate-specific antigen-associated anxiety in patients with biopsy-proven low-grade prostate cancer and elevated prostate-specific antigen. Additional benefits include voiding symptom improvement and the avoidance of curative therapy's immediate side effects.