The influence of transurethral resection of prostate on prognosis of patients with adenocarcinoma of the prostate treated by radical radiotherapy.

Results of 999 patients with carcinoma of the prostate treated with radical radiotherapy were evaluated to assess the impact of pre-treatment transurethral resection of the prostate. (TURP). A total of 427 patients had a needle biopsy and 541 patients had a TURP. In 31 patients the diagnostic procedure could not be ascertained. In patients with stage T1/T2 disease (411) no adverse effect on prognosis was observed following TURP compared with needle biopsy. In patients with stage T3/T4 disease (534) a significantly higher distant relapse rate and cause-specific mortality were observed after TURP but overall survival was similar after TURP and needle biopsy. A significant correlation was observed between the probability of TURP and poorly differentiated cancers. Multivariate analysis which evaluated the influence of age, T stage, histologic differentiation and TURP did not demonstrate diagnostic TURP to be a significant independent prognostic variate for patients with prostate cancer managed by radical radiotherapy.