Suivi après radiothérapie des cancers de prostate : évaluation et prise en charge de la toxicité et de la récidive

[The radiation oncologist, one of the actors in the patient's path after cancer. Follow up after prostate cancer]

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer of men over 50 years old. Localized prostatic cancer treatment may be responsible of a decline of patient's quality of life. The main actors of treatment are now focused on minimizing functional consequences of treatments. The radiation oncologist has a central role in patient monitoring. The follow-up is codified by official recommendations of learned societies to enhance the post-cancer period. The main objective of this article is to review the recommendations for clinical and biological follow-up. An inventory of the functional consequences of the various treatments will be detailed, and particularly those caused by androgen deprivation therapy, with a review of precautions before implementation, adverse effects and their management, as well as monitoring recommendations. The analysis of quality of life after curative treatment and suggestions to improve monitoring will also be discussed.

Predictors of urinary and rectal toxicity after external conformed radiation therapy in prostate cancer: Correlation between clinical, tumour and dosimetric parameters and radical and postoperative radiation therapy

OBJECTIVE

To determine rectal and urinary toxicity after external beam radiation therapy (EBRT), assessing the results of patients who undergo radical or postoperative therapy for prostate cancer (pancreatic cancer) and their correlation with potential risk factors.

METHOD

A total of 333 patients were treated with EBRT. Of these, 285 underwent radical therapy and 48 underwent postoperative therapy (39 cases of rescue and 9 of adjuvant therapy). We collected clinical, tumour and dosimetric variable to correlate with toxicity parameters. We developed decision trees based on the degree of statistical significance.

RESULTS

The rate of severe acute toxicity, both urinary and rectal, was 5.4% and 1.5%, respectively. The rate of chronic toxicity was 4.5% and 2.7%, respectively. Twenty-seven patients presented haematuria, and 9 presented haemorrhagic rectitis. Twenty-five patients (7.5%) presented permanent limiting sequela. The patients with lower urinary tract symptoms prior to the radiation therapy presented poorer tolerance, with greater acute bladder toxicity (P=0.041). In terms of acute rectal toxicity, 63% of the patients with mean rectal doses >45Gy and anticoagulant/antiplatelet therapy developed mild toxicity compared with 37% of the patients with mean rectal doses <45 Gy and without anticoagulant therapy. We were unable to establish predictors of chronic toxicity in the multivariate analysis. The long-term sequelae were greater in the patients who underwent urological operations prior to the radiation therapy and who were undergoing anticoagulant therapy.

CONCLUSIONS

The tolerance to EBRT was good, and severe toxicity was uncommon. Baseline urinary symptoms constitute the predictor that most influenced the acute urinary toxicity. Rectal toxicity is related to the mean rectal dose and with anticoagulant/antiplatelet therapy. There were no significant differences in severe toxicity between radical versus postoperative radiation therapy.