Utility of Prostate-Specific Antigen Kinetics in Addition to Clinical Factors in the Selection of Patients for Salvage Local Therapy

A detectable and rising prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level after radical prostatectomy or a rising PSA above the nadir value after radiation therapy may represent a local failure, distant failure, or both. Determining the site or sites of failure is critical for selecting the appropriate salvage therapy. Nevertheless, although PSA failure precedes clinically evident failure by several years, determining the source of the biochemical failure is often not possible using currently available diagnostic studies. Selecting the optimal therapeutic approach may be guided by the initial clinical factors (eg, T-category, PSA, biopsy Gleason score). If the patient has had a radical prostatectomy, then the pathologic outcomes of the surgery (eg, pathologic T-category and prostatectomy Gleason score, nodal and margin status) may provide further information. Beyond pretreatment clinical and post-treatment pathologic factors, PSA kinetics, and specifically a pretreatment PSA velocity > 2 ng/mL/year, an interval to PSA failure < 3 years and a post-treatment PSA doubling time < 3 months place a man at increased risk for metastases and subsequent prostate cancer-specific mortality, making these men poor candidates for local-only salvage therapy. Therefore, the optimal candidate for local-only salvage therapy is a man whose pretreatment PSA velocity was 2 ng/mL/year or less, interval to PSA failure exceeds 3 years, and post-treatment PSA doubling time is at least 12 months, and who did not have biopsy or prostatectomy Gleason score of 8 to 10 or seminal vesicle or lymph node involvement.