Androgen suppression plus radiation versus radiation alone for patients with stage D1/pathologic node-positive adenocarcinoma of the prostate: updated results based on national prospective randomized trial Radiation Therapy Oncology Group 85-31.

What Was Tested

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

To update the effect of immediate androgen suppression in conjunction with standard external-beam irradiation versus radiation alone on a group of histologically lymph node-positive patients with adenocarcinoma of the prostate.

Who Took Part

The study group was 1985 patients.

The age groups tagged for this paper are adults, middle-aged adults and older adults, men only.

A national prospective randomized trial (Radiation Therapy Oncology Group 85-31) of standard external-beam irradiation plus immediate androgen suppression versus external-beam irradiation alone was initiated in 1985 for patients with locally advanced adenocarcinoma of the prostate.

One hundred seventy-three patients in this trial had histologically involved lymph nodes.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized study.

The patients were allocated by chance, so the intervention group and the comparison group should start out alike.

Ninety-eight patients received radiation plus immediate androgen suppression (luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone [LHRH] agonist), whereas 75 patients received radiation alone with hormonal manipulation instituted at the time of relapse.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Adenocarcinoma, Combined Modality Therapy, Goserelin, Lymphatic Metastasis, Neoplasm Staging and Prostatic Neoplasms.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study in 1985 patients.

With several hundred people or more, it is a fairly large study for this kind of research.

Its findings take up roughly 3 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2005 (Journal of clinical oncology : official journal of the American Society of Clinical Oncology), a journal based in United States.

More context: all human trials.