| RADICAL
PROSTATECTOMY DATABASE - YEAR 2 Dr Jonathan Cohen, Dr M Constance Parkinson, Professor John Masters Prostate Cancer Research Centre |
This is the second in a series of grants by Prostate Research Campaign UK to support the construction of the database.
Early prostate cancer can be treated with radical surgery, radical radiotherapy and other emerging procedures. Alternatively, if the cancer is not expected to cause symptoms during the lifetime of the patient, it can be carefully followed and only if the PSA rises will treatment need to be given - so called Active Surveillance.
The decision which route to take is partly guesswork, and is based on the characteristics of the cancer and the preferences of the patient and the clinician. To improve this decision, new markers are needed which accurately predict the optimum treatment for men with early prostate cancer, so that the choice of treatment can be made with a more certain knowledge of the likely benefits of each possible type of treatment. To find such markers, the history of a large series of cases over a long follow-up period is required. The Radical Prostatectomy Database will provide this and will contain the tissue and clinical information from a large number of patients. This is needed as the foundation of the search for new markers.
Radical Prostatectomy Database
This database provides clinical information on the symptoms, microscopic
appearance and outcome of radical prostatectomy, the surgical removal
of the prostate gland for the treatment of early prostate cancer. Such
a database has existed at the Institute of Urology for a few years.
It has recorded detailed information on the diagnosis, surgery and follow-up of all the patients whose surgical specimen was sent to Dr Constance Parkinson for microscopic assessment - which is a normal procedure after the removal.
Progress
During this year of the project, Jonathan Cohen, the Database Manager at
the Institute of Urology, funded by Prostate Research Campaign, began
to re-organise and restructure the database. He also collected and stored
information on between 5-10 new cases every week , as well as beginning
to collect the follow-up data from the patients' notes. He has adapted
the database so that it is easy to interrogate and so has increased the
potential use of the information.
In the year the number of cases on which histopathological information is stored rose from 412 to over 600 cases. It is by far the largest and longest (up to 12 years follow-up) group of radical prostatectomy specimens collected in the UK.
New Features
> The Database now systematically logs the PSA levels before and after
the operation with dates, allowing detailed tracking of diagnosis and outcome.
> It now has preoperative PSA levels on over 80% of the men and postoperative
PSA levels on over 50%.
> Clinical staging (Gleason score) has been added as a data item.
Research summarised by Prostate Research Campaign UK, 15 January 2006
Project G1999/04.