Quality of life in patients undergoing salvage procedures for locally recurrent prostate cancer

Background and Objectives: As patients are being treated for prostate cancer at a younger age, a significant number of them will ultimately fail the primary treatment and will be candidates for potentially curative salvage therapy. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of salvage therapy for locally recurrent prostate cancer upon the patients' quality of life. Methods: A cohort of 68 men with locally recurrent prostate cancer undergoing salvage treatment was included in this analysis. Data were collected for the study by mailing the subjects a self-administered questionnaire that included a General Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy (FACT-G) and a Prostate Cancer Treatment Outcome Questionnaire (FACT-P). Group comparisons were conducted using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results: Overall, 50% and 88.6% of patients were free of biochemical recurrence in the salvage surgery (SS) and salvage radiotherapy (SRt) group, respectively (P = 0.4). The physical well-being (PWB) subscale of FACT-G was significantly higher for the SRt patients (P = 0.008). Using the Trial Outcome Index Prostate subscale. the Trial Outcome Index Incontinence Urinary scores, and the Functional Assessment of Incontinence Therapy-Urinary score group comparisons, patients in the SRt group had a higher quality of life than patients in the SS group (P = 0.038, P = 0.001, and P = 0.001, respectively). Conclusions: In the current study, patients with clinically localized prostate cancer who are at high risk for local disease recurrence may have a trend toward better disease-free survival and a better urinary continence rates if the primary treatment is radical prostatectomy rather than radiation therapy. J. Surg. Oncol. 1998:69:156-161. (C) 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc.