Introduction: Prostate cancer (PCa) patients who are classified into the intermediate risk category represent a heterogeneous population needing further preoperative risk assessment.
Objectives: To evaluate clinical total testosterone (TT) associations with lymph node invasion (LNI) in intermediate risk PCa.
Material and methods: Between November 2014 and July 2016, intermediate risk PCa was assessed in 154 patients who underwent extended pelvic lymph node dissection if the risk of LNI was higher than 5%. Clinical factors associated with the risk LNI were investigated by the multinomial logistic regression model.
Results: The risk of LNI was assessed higher than 5% in 40.9% of cases of whom 15.5% had LNI. In the multivariate model, the risk of LNI was independently increased by prostate specific antigen (OR = 1.185; p = 0.021) and TT (OR = 1.004; p = 0.036). As a result, TT was an independent factor that associated with LNI because it increased the risk of LNI by 4% for each increment unit of TT.
Conclusion: Preoperative TT independently increased the risk of LNI in the intermediate risk class of PCa patients elected to radical prostatectomy and extended pelvic lymph node dissection. TT might be a useful preoperative factor for stratifying intermediate risk patients because of the positive association of TT with high grade tumors.
Keywords: Lymph node invasion; Pelvic lymph node dissection; Prostate cancer; Prostate specific antigen; Radical prostatectomy; Testosterone.
Copyright © 2019 by S. Karger AG, Basel.