A novel predictor of clinical progression in patients on active surveillance for prostate cancer
Introduction: Active surveillance (AS) is standard of care in low-risk prostate cancer (PC). This study describes a novel total cancer location (TCLo) density metric and aims to determine its performance in predicting clinical progression (CP) and grade progression (GP). Methods: This was a retrospective study of patients on AS after confirmatory biopsy (CBx). We excluded patients with Gleason ≥7 at CBx and <2 years follow-up. TCLo was the number of locations with positive cores at diagnosis (DBx) and CBx. TCLo density was TCLo / prostate volume (PV). CP was progression to any active treatment while GP occurred if Gleason ≥7 was identified on repeat biopsy or surgical pathology. Independent predictors of time to CP or GP were estimated with Cox regression. Kaplan-Meier analysis compared progression-free survival curves between TCLo density groups. Test characteristics of TCLo were explored with receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. Results: We included 181 patients who had CBx between 2012-2015, and met inclusion criteria. The mean age of patients was 62.58 years (SD=7.13) and median follow-up was 60.9 months (IQR=23.4). A high TCLo density score (>0.05) was independently associated with time to CP (HR 4.70, 95% CI: 2.62-8.42, p<0.001), and GP (HR 3.85, 95% CI: 1.91-7.73, p<0.001). ROC curves showed TCLo density has greater area under the curve than number of positive cores at CBx in predicting progression. Conclusion: TCLo density is able to stratify patients on AS for risk of CP and GP. With further validation, it could be added to the decision-making algorithm in AS for low-risk localized PC.