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Brachytherapy may be preferred for obese men with prostate cancer
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BMI was not associated with PSA failure in men treated with brachytherapy for prostate cancer in a recent study.
Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital and Boston Medical Center conducted a retrospective analysis to determine the relationship between BMI and PSA failure in men treated with brachytherapy for prostate cancer.
The study included 374 men with stage T1c-T2cNXM0 prostate cancer who underwent brachytherapy between 1996 and 2001. Some patients were treated with supplemental external beam radiation therapy (n=49) or androgen deprivation therapy (n=131).
The researchers obtained height and weight data for 94% of participants. Median age was 66 years, median PSA was 5.7 ng/mL and median BMI was 27.1.
The researchers reported 76 PSA recurrences at a median follow-up of six years. They found no association between BMI and PSA failure. Men with BMI <25 had a six-year PSA failure rate of 30.2%. The rate for those with BMI ≥25 and <30 was 19.5% and for those with BMI of ≥30 it was 14.4% (P=.19).
The associated HR for overweight men was 0.70 (P=.19), and 0.55 for obese men (P=.08). Only baseline PSA was associated with shorter time to PSA failure (HR=1.12; P=.0006) in a multivariate analysis.
Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 2008;71:1302-1308.