Undetectable PSA level following prostate brachytherapy
April 7th, 2010 Posted in radiation therapyA recent article in the on-line UroToday International Journal suggests that brachytherapy can (and perhaps should) use a higher standard for long-term follow-up.
To evaluate clinical success and failure after brachytherapy most centers today use the Phoenix criteria that defines biochemical failure after radiation therapy as a PSA level equal to the lowest (nadir) PSA level achieved after therapy plus 2 ng/ml. By comparison, the standard expectation for a PSA after radical prostatectomy today is an “undetectable” level, usually taken to mean a PSA level of < 0.1 ng/ml.
Acording to study authors, comparing outcomes of patients treated with radical prostatectomy and radiation therapy for prostate cancer is difficult, due to different PSA patterns following treatment and varying definitions of success. The present study showed that an undetectable PSA level after brachytherapy is consistently associated with disease-free state, which reflects the durability of that biochemical status. It matches the most stringent definition of disease freedom following prostatectomy.