Preoperative Clinical and Pathological Characteristics of pT0 Prostate Cancer in Radical Prostatectomy

Purpose: To analyze the preoperative clinical and pathological characteristics of patients with pT0 prostate cancer.

Materials and methods: We retrospectively reviewed the records of 702 patients who underwent radical prostatectomy (RP) at our institution between January 2004 and July 2008 for clinically localized prostate cancer. If there was no evidence of residual tumor in the pathological specimen of the prostate, a patient was staged as pT0. Patients with pT0 disease were compared with a control group of patients who were operated on during the same period.

Results: Overall, 9 (1.3%) patients were staged as pT0 on the pathologic examination. Significant differences were observed between the pT0 group and the control patients in the biopsy Gleason score (p=0.004), the number of positive cores on biopsy (p=0.018), the tumor length of positive cores (p<0.001), and prostate volume (p=0.015). Cutoff values predictive of pT0 tumor status were defined as a biopsy Gleason score sum </=6, 2 or fewer positive biopsy cores, tumor length on biopsy </=2 mm, and prostate volume >30 cm(3). Whereas 8 of the 9 (88.9%) pT0 patients showed all of these characteristics, only 55 of the 693 (7.9%) control patients fulfilled the criteria. The combination suggested above afforded a sensitivity of 88.8% and a specificity of 92.1% for the prediction of pT0 status.

Conclusions: The frequency of pT0 prostate cancer seen on RP was 1.3%. A combination of clinicopathological features, incorporating a biopsy Gleason score, the number of positive biopsy cores, tumor length on biopsy, and prostate volume, was useful to predict pT0 stage on RP.