Outcome predictions for patients with metastatic prostate cancer.

Estimating prognosis with patients with metastatic disease is important for patient counseling, guiding treatment selection, and assessing treatment outcomes. For patients with noncastrate metastatic disease, androgen ablation is considered first-line therapy, with upward of 80% of patients showing clinical benefit. For these patients, information about duration of response to hormones and overall survival is important. Most patients eventually relapse, at which point the mortality from cancer greatly exceeds that from other causes. This article focuses on prognostic models for patients with progressive noncastrate and castrate metastatic prostate cancer. Copyright 2002, Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.