Long-term follow-up after open perineal cryotherapy in patients with locally confined prostate cancer.

OBJECTIVE

Appropriate therapies for locally confined adenocarcinoma of the prostate are available-but there is as yet no gold standard of therapy. For that reason, old therapeutic regimens are being revised. One such regimen is cryotherapy.

METHODS

Between 1976 and 1989, 1,250 patients were seen with newly diagnosed prostate cancer. Sixty-six patients of stages T1c (n = 3), T2a (n = 32), T2b (n = 9), T2c (n = 11), T3a (n = 4), T3b (n = 5) and T3c (n = 2) were treated by open perineal cryotherapy. Mean age was 68 years. Three months after surgery, transurethral resection of the prostate and/or perineal biopsy was performed.

RESULTS

In 66% of patients with stages T1c-T2b and in 87% of patients with stages T2c-T3c, positive biopsies were obtained. To date, 28 patients have died between 3 and 16 years after cryotherapy, with a mean survival of 7.2 years. The mean follow-up period of survivors (38 patients) is 8.5 years. Complications were: stress-incontinence in 10%, impotence in 10% and temporary rectoperineal fistula in 8%.

CONCLUSIONS

Cryosurgery is an effective treatment for locally confined prostate cancer. With improvement of the procedure, clinical outcome may also improve.