Prostate cancer DNA ploidy and response to salvage hormone therapy after radiotherapy with or without short-term total androgen blockade: an analysis of RTOG 8610.

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Androgen Antagonists, published as a randomized controlled trial.

DNA ploidy has consistently been found to be a correlate of prostate cancer patient outcome.

In this retrospective study, the predictive value of DNA ploidy was evaluated in patients entered into Radiation Therapy Oncology Group protocol 8610.

The protocol treatment randomization was RT alone versus RT plus short-course (approximately 4 months) neoadjuvant and concurrent total androgen blockade (RT+TAB).

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 149 patients taking part.

PubMed indexes the participants as middle-aged adults, older adults and people over 80, men only.

The study population consisted of 149 patients, of whom 74 received RT alone and 75 received RT+TAB.

DNA content was determined by image analysis of Feulgen stained tissue sections; 94 patients were diploid and 55 patients were nondiploid.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized study.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Androgen Antagonists and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Androgen Antagonists, Combined Modality Therapy, DNA, Neoplasm, Diploidy, Flutamide, Goserelin and Neoplasm Metastasis.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study of Androgen Antagonists in 149 patients.

Its findings take up roughly 6 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2003 (Journal of clinical oncology : official journal of the American Society of Clinical Oncology), a journal based in United States.

More context: all human trials.