Copy number alterations of c-MYC and PTEN are prognostic factors for relapse after prostate cancer radiotherapy.

Despite the use of PSA, Gleason score, and T-category as prognosticators in intermediate-risk prostate cancer, 20-40% of patients will fail local therapy. In order to optimize treatment approaches for intermediate-risk patients, additional genetic prognosticators are needed. Previous reports using array comparative genomic hybridization (aCGH) in radical prostatectomy cohorts suggested a combination of allelic loss of the PTEN gene on 10q and allelic gain of the c-MYC gene on 8q were associated with metastatic disease. We tested whether copy number alterations (CNAs) in PTEN (allelic loss) and c-MYC (allelic gain) were associated with biochemical relapse following modern-era, image-guided radiotherapy (mean dose 76.4 Gy). We used aCGH analyses validated by fluorescence in-situ hybridization (FISH) of DNA was derived from frozen, pre-treatment biopsies in 126 intermediate-risk prostate cancer patients. Patients whose tumors had CNAs in both PTEN and c-MYC had significantly increased genetic instability (percent genome alteration; PGA) compared to tumors with normal PTEN and c-MYC status (p < 0.0001). We demonstrate that c-MYC gain alone, or combined c-MYC gain and PTEN loss, were increasingly prognostic for relapse on multivariable analyses (hazard ratios (HR) of 2.58/p = 0.005 and 3.21/p = 0.0004; respectively). Triaging patients by the use of CNAs within pre-treatment biopsies may allow for better use of systemic therapies to target sub-clinical metastases or locally recurrent disease and improve clinical outcomes.