Abstract
Purpose: We set out to determine whether patients who underwent prostatectomy for recurrence after external-beam radiotherapy for prostate cancer had a higher incidence of alterations in the apoptotic pathway than did patients who underwent surgery as initial treatment. Methods and Materials: Twenty patients who underwent unsuccessful full-dose external-beam radiotherapy for prostate cancer and subsequently underwent salvage radical surgery (radio-recurrent group), and 20 patients matched for various clinical parameters who underwent only radical prostatectomy for localized or locally advanced prostate cancer (radio-naive group), were studied. Tissue samples were examined for immunoreactivity for p53, p21, Bcl-2, and Ki-67 proteins. Statistically, the two groups were compared using exact logistic regression. Results: Fifty-five percent of the tumors from patients initially treated with radiotherapy were noted to overexpress Bcl-2; whereas, in the radio-naive group, no patient had Bcl-2 overexpression (p = 0.0004). More patients who underwent salvage radical surgery were found to have a higher mean proliferative index (Ki-67 staining) (39.6%), compared with patients undergoing prostatectomy alone (22.1%), p = 0.0800. No significant difference was noted in immunohistochemical expression of p53 and p21 between the two groups. Conclusion: Patients undergoing radical prostatectomy after radiotherapy had a significantly higher rate of Bcl-2 overexpression than did patients who underwent surgery as the initial treatment. Alterations in the apoptotic pathway may be important in the development of local recurrence after radiation therapy.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 1-6 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | International Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology Physics |
Volume | 56 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - May 1 2003 |
Keywords
- Bcl-2
- Prostate cancer
- Radiotherapy
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Radiation
- Oncology
- Radiology Nuclear Medicine and imaging
- Cancer Research