A Pilot Study of Pre-Operative Conformal Radiotherapy in Patients With Radical Prostatectomy

Radical prostatectomy and radical radiation therapy remain the standard treatment approaches for patients with clinically localized prostate cancer (T1, T2).Radical prostatectomy is most effective when the disease is organ confined at the time of surgery. However, in many series up to 60% of patients have positive resection margins at the time of surgery and there is evidence to suggest that these patients may not be curable by surgery alone. A number of preoperative clinical variables including clinical stage, serum Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) and Gleason scorea re helpful in determining the probability of finding organ confined disease at the time of syrgery.