Late local complications after definitive radiotherapy for prostatic adenocarcinoma.

Definitive radiation treatment of prostatic adenocarcinoma has been reported to produce good long-term local disease control, and distant disease failure is almost always associated with good local palliation. We examined late local complications in patients who died with recurrent prostate cancer after definitive radiotherapy as compared to patients treated with hormonal deprivation alone for advanced disease. Between 1979 and 1989 the tumor registry listed 33 men in whom definitive radiotherapy failed documented by bone scan or biopsy and 54 men who were managed with palliative hormonal therapy for noncurable disease. A complication was defined as a local problem requiring a procedure or hospitalization. Overall 23 of the radiotherapy cases (70%) had a local complication as compared to 16 of the patients (30%) who underwent only hormonal therapy. Local complications after radiotherapy included urethral stricture (10 cases), prostatic obstruction (8), hematuria (4), radiation cystitis (3), ureteral obstruction (2) and rectosigmoid radiation injury (4). Local complications after hormonal therapy consisted of prostatic obstruction (11 cases), ureteral obstruction (3) and hematuria (3). The radiotherapy group had 2 urinary and 2 fecal diversions, and the hormonal therapy group had none. In summary, we found a higher risk of late local complications in patients who had recurrence and died with metastatic prostate cancer after definitive radiotherapy, as compared to patients who only received hormonal therapy. These results question the belief that patients with distant disease in whom radiotherapy fails enjoy good long-term local palliation.