Browsing by Subject "radiation"

Background: Prostate cancer is the second most diagnosed cancer in men worldwide. The risk is heavily associated with age and men have a 12% chance of being diagnosed prostate cancer by the age of 75. Local prostate cancer can be treated with radiotherapy or surgery. After treatments, measuring and controlling for serum PSA values and using PSMA PET CT imaging are options to identify local relapses and metastases of the disease. The purpose of this study was to investigate the characteristics of local relapses of prostate cancer in patients primarily treated with radiotherapy. Methods: The data was gathered from Finnprostata study with originally 1418 patients. To compare the characteristics of the original diagnosis and relapse we had to exclude patients with metastases, without biopsy results, duplicates and not treated with radiotherapy. The total number of patients who met the criteria was 38. We also studied the time period between the original diagnosis and the relapse. Results: From our 38 patients, 32 are still alive. Of the 6 that died 2 died from prostate cancer. Looking at the characteristics of the relapse, on average the relapse had a higher gleason grading than the original cancer. The same results were found on a per patients’ basis, as 30 patients had an increase in their grade group from the original diagnosis. 3 patients did not have cancer in their prostate biopsy following a biochemical relapse. On average patients suffered from a biochemical relapse within 10 years after primary diagnosis. Conclusion: Our results indicate that localized prostate cancer relapses following radiotherapy with curative intent is of a more aggressive nature than the original cancer and most relapses occur within 10 years after diagnosis. Our results also indicate that PSMA PET CT has a specificity of 86% in finding local relapse of prostate cancer.