Preoperative predictors for organ-confined disease in Japanese patients with stage T1c prostate cancer

Background: In order to define the characteristics of patients with clinical stage T1c prostate cancer in Japan, clinicopathologic data obtained from patients treated by radical prostatectomy were reviewed. Methods: Fifty-four stage T1c cancers were evaluated for tumor volume, Gleason grade, tumor location and pathologic stage from prostatectomy specimens in association with preoperative clinical parameters. Results: The mean tumor volume was 3.94 mL (range, 0.07 to 33.4 mL), and 11 of the 54 tumors had a tumor volume of less than 0.5 mL. Thirty-two tumors (59%) were organ-confined, while 7 (13%) involved the seminal vesicle and/or regional lymph nodes. Multivariate logistic regression analysis of the pretreatment variables, including age, pretreatment PSA level, prostate volume, biopsy grade, and number of cancer-positive cores revealed that the serum PSA level and the number of cancer-positive biopsy cores were independent factors to predict organ-confined tumors (P = 0.036 and 0.044, respectively). For T1c cancer with less than 4 cancer-positive biopsy cores, the sensitivity and specificity for predicting organ-confined tumors were 90% and 70%, with a cut-off value of 17 ng/mL for the serum PSA level. Conclusion: The clinicopathologic features of T1c prostate cancer in Japanese patients were similar to those of whites reported elsewhere. Both serum PSA levels and the number of positive biopsy cores may be useful as pretreatment parameters to identify patients with the potential to benefit from radical treatment.