Genomic Gain of 16p13.3 in Prostate Cancer Predicts Poor Clinical Outcome after Surgical Intervention.

Identifying tumors with high metastatic potential is key to improving the clinical management of prostate cancer. Recently, we characterized a chromosome 16p13.3 gain frequently observed in prostate cancer metastases and now demonstrate the prognostic value of this genomic alteration in surgically treated prostate cancer. Dual-color FISH was used to detect 16p13.3 gain on a human tissue microarray representing 304 primary radical prostatectomy (RP) cases with clinical follow-up data. The results were validated in an external dataset. The 16p13.3 gain was detected in 42% (113/267) of the specimens scorable by FISH and was significantly associated with clinicopathologic features of aggressive prostate cancer, including high preoperative PSA ( = 0.03) levels, high Gleason score (GS, < 0.0001), advanced pathologic tumor stage ( < 0.0001), and positive surgical margins ( = 0.009). The 16p13.3 gain predicted biochemical recurrence (BCR) in the overall cohort (log-rank = 0.0005), and in subsets of patients with PSA ≤10 or GS ≤7 (log-rank = 0.02 and = 0.006, respectively). Moreover, combining the 16p13.3 gain status with standard prognostic markers improved BCR risk stratification and identified a subgroup of patients with high probability of recurrence. The 16p13.3 gain status was also associated with an increased risk of developing distant metastases (log-rank = 0.03) further substantiating its role in prostate cancer progression. This study demonstrates the prognostic significance of the 16p13.3 genomic gain in primary prostate tumors, suggesting potential utility in the clinical management of the disease by identifying patients at high risk of recurrence who may benefit from adjuvant therapies. .