THE INFLUENCE OF TRANSURETHRAL RESECTION OF PROSTATE ON PROGNOSIS OF PATIENTS WITH ADENOCARCINOMA OF THE PROSTATE TREATED BY RADICAL RADIOTHERAPY

Results of 999 patients with carcinoma of the prostate treated with ra dical radiotherapy were evaluated to assess the impact of pre-treatmen t transurethral resection of the prostate. (TURF). A total of 427 pati ents had a needle biopsy and 541 patients had a TURF. In 31 patients t he diagnostic procedure could not be ascertained. In patients with sta ge T1/T2 disease (411) no adverse effect on prognosis was observed fol lowing TURF compared with needle biopsy. In patients with stage T3/T4 disease (534) a significantly higher distant relapse rate and cause-sp ecific mortality were observed after TURF but overall survival was sim ilar after TURF and needle biopsy. A significant correlation was obser ved between the probability of TURF and poorly differentiated cancers. Multivariate analysis which evaluated the influence of age, T stage, histologic differentiation and TURF did not demonstrate diagnostic TUR F to be a significant independent prognostic variate for patients with prostate cancer managed by radical radiotherapy.