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. 2018 Sep 20;5(1):91–96. doi: 10.1001/jamaoncol.2018.3732

Association of Gleason Grade With Androgen Deprivation Therapy Duration and Survival Outcomes

A Systematic Review and Patient-Level Meta-analysis

Amar U Kishan 1,2,, Xiaoyan Wang 3, Wendy Seiferheld 4, Laurence Collette 5, Kiri A Sandler 1, Howard M Sandler 6, Michel Bolla 7, Philippe Maingon 8, Theo De Reijke 9, Gerald E Hanks 10, Nicholas G Nickols 1,11, Matthew Rettig 12,13, Alexandra Drakaki 12, Robert E Reiter 2, Daniel E Spratt 14, Patrick A Kupelian 1, Michael L Steinberg 1, Christopher R King 1
PMCID: PMC6440243  PMID: 30326032

Key Points

Question

Do Gleason grade group (GG) 4 (formerly Gleason score 8) and GG 5 (formerly Gleason score 9-10) prostate cancers respond differently to increasing durations of androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) with radiotherapy?

Findings

In this systematic review and meta-analysis of 992 patients with GG 4 to 5 disease, short-term ADT and long-term ADT only improved overall survival among patients with GG 4 disease, and lifelong ADT only improved overall survival in patients with GG 5 disease.

Meaning

Longer durations of ADT improved outcomes in GG 4 and GG 5 disease, with different optimal durations; strategies to maintain the efficacy of ADT while minimizing its duration (potentially with enhanced potency agents) should be investigated.


This meta-analysis examines the association of Gleason grade with the effectiveness of androgen deprivation therapy with radiotherapy in treating patients with high-risk prostate cancer.

Abstract

Importance

Androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) improves survival outcomes in patients with high-risk prostate cancer (PCa) treated with radiotherapy (RT). Whether this benefit differs between patients with Gleason grade group (GG) 4 (formerly Gleason score 8) and GG 5 (formerly Gleason score 9-10) disease remains unknown.

Objective

To determine whether the effectiveness of ADT duration varies between patients with GG 4 vs GG 5 PCa.

Design, Setting, and Participants

Traditional and network individual patient data meta-analyses of 992 patients (593 GG 4 and 399 GG 5) who were enrolled in 6 randomized clinical trials were carried out.

Main Outcomes and Measures

Multivariable Cox proportional hazard models were used to obtain hazard ratio (HR) estimates of ADT duration effects on overall survival (OS) and distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS). Cause-specific competing risk models were used to estimate HRs for cancer-specific survival (CSS). The interaction of ADT with GS was incorporated into the multivariable models. Traditional and network meta-analysis frameworks were used to compare outcomes of patients treated with RT alone, short-term ADT (STADT), long-term ADT (LTADT), and lifelong ADT.

Results

Five hundred ninety-three male patients (mean age, 70 years; range, 43-88 years) with GG 4 and 399 with GG 5 were identified. Median follow-up was 6.4 years. Among GG 4 patients, LTADT and STADT improved OS over RT alone (HR, 0.43; 95% CI, 0.26-0.70 and HR, 0.59; 95% CI, 0.38-0.93, respectively; P = .03 for both), whereas lifelong ADT did not (HR, 0.84; 95% CI, 0.54-1.30; P = .44). Among GG 5 patients, lifelong ADT improved OS (HR, 0.48; 95% CI, 0.31-0.76; P = .04), whereas neither LTADT nor STADT did (HR, 0.80; 95% CI, 0.45-1.44 and HR, 1.13; 95% CI, 0.69-1.87; P = .45 and P = .64, respectively). Among all patients, and among those receiving STADT, GG 5 patients had inferior OS compared with GG 4 patients (HR, 1.25; 95% CI, 1.07-1.47 and HR, 1.40; 95% CI, 1.05-1.88, respectively; P = .02). There was no significant OS difference between GG 5 and GG 4 patients receiving LTADT or lifelong ADT (HR, 1.21; 95% CI, 0.89-1.65 and HR, 0.85; 95% CI, 0.53-1.37; P = .23 and P = .52, respectively).

Conclusions and Relevance

These data suggest that prolonged durations of ADT improve survival outcomes in both GG 4 disease and GG 5 disease, albeit with different optimal durations. Strategies to maintain the efficacy of ADT while minimizing its duration (potentially with enhanced potency agents) should be investigated.

Introduction

Multiple randomized clinical trials have demonstrated a survival benefit to combining long-duration androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) with radiotherapy (RT) for high-risk prostate cancer (PCa).1 Androgen deprivation therapy has multiple adverse effects2 and several trials have investigated shortening ADT duration. Although most trials conflate the outcomes for patients with Gleason grade group (GG) 4 (formerly Gleason score 8) and GG 5 (formerly Gleason score 9-10) disease, GG 5 PCa has been consistently shown to follow a more aggressive natural history, and the effect of ADT duration might differ between the two.3 To identify differences in the association of ADT duration with clinical outcomes of patients with GG 4 and GG 5 PCa, we performed an individual patient-level meta-analysis of 6 randomized clinical trials (Table 1).4,5,6,7,8,9 Our working hypothesis was that longer durations of ADT would offer significant survival benefits in both groups.

Table 1. Summary of Trials Included in Meta-analysis With Breakdown by Gleason Score.

Trial Inclusiona No. Arms GG 4 GG 5 Total
Patients Randomized Patients Extracted
RTOG
Pilepich et al, 20054 (1987-1992) cT1-T2N+ or cT3-4 < 25 cm2b 977 216 RT alone 61 47 108
Lifelong ADT 59 49 108
Pilepich et al, 20015 (1987-1991) cT2-T4 ≥ 25 cm2 456 128 RT alone 33 36 69
STADT 29 30 59
Horwitz et al, 20086 (1992-1995) cT2-4N0-X, PSA<150c 1554 337 STADT 93 78 171
LTADT 92 74 166
EORTC
Bolla et al, 19977 (1987-1995) cT1-2N0 WHO grade 3
cT3-4N0
415 43d RT alone 17 7 24
LTADT 13 6 19
Bolla et al, 20098 (1997-2001) cT1c-2bN+, cT3-4N0
PSA<40xULN
970 186 STADT 56 34 90
LTADT 75 21 96
Bolla et al, 20169 (2001-2008) cT1b-c with PSA≥10 or GS≥7, cT2a with PSA≤50 819 82 RT alone 29 8 37
STADT 36 9 45
Group GG 4 GG 5 Total
RT alone 140 98 238
STADT 214 151 365
LTADT 180 101 281
Lifelong ADT 59 49 108
Total 593 399 992

Abbreviations: ADT, androgen deprivation therapy; GG, Gleason grade group; GS, Gleason score; LTADT, long-term ADT; RT, radiation therapy; STADT, short-term ADT.

a

Patients with cN+ or pN+ disease were included on several protocols but not included in our analyses.

b

RTOG 8531 also included patients with high-risk features after radical prostatectomy, who were not included in our analysis.

c

PSA values are in units of nanograms per milliliter unless otherwise indicated.

d

The 43 patients from EORTC 22863 are drawn from a subgroup of 132 patients who underwent Gleason grading.

Methods

Details of trial selection and specific trial information are provided in eFigure 1 and eTable 1 in the Supplement. Long-term ADT (LTADT) was defined as 28 to 36 months, whereas short-term ADT (STADT) was defined as 4 to 6 months. The primary endpoints were distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS), cancer-specific survival (CSS), and overall survival (OS). For DMFS and OS, patient-level data were used to obtain trial-specific hazard ratio (HR) estimates of pairwise treatment effects after fitting multivariable Cox proportional hazards models adjusting for age, specific Gleason score (eg, 9 vs 10), interaction of treatments and GG, and T-stage. For CSS, HRs were obtained by fitting cause-specific competing risk models with competing events, such as noncancer-related deaths treated as censored observations. For studies with small sample size, Firth’s bias correction method10 was applied in the estimation of individual models to obtain stable estimates. A network meta-analysis (NMA)10,11 approach was adopted for direct/indirect pairwise meta-analysis of treatments. Based on novel graph-theory methodology and electrical networks, this frequentist method derives an NMA framework that enables incorporation of indirect comparisons constructed from 2 studies that have 1 treatment in common, while accounting for the correlated treatment effects in multiarm trials (eFigure 2 in the Supplement).11 Fixed-effect and random-effects models were adopted after evaluating the heterogeneity and inconsistency of the included studies by between-studies variance, percentage of the total variability in a set of effect sizes owing to true heterogeneity, and Q test for heterogeneity/inconsistency, and treatments were ranked by P score, a frequentist analogue to the surface under the cumulative ranking curve. Traditional random-effects meta-analyses were performed to compare outcomes between GG 5 and GG 4 disease as a function of ADT duration. All statistical analyses were conducted using SAS statistical software (version 9.4, SAS Institute Inc) and Packages “netmeta” (Network Meta-Analysis using Frequentist Methods) and “meta” in the R statistical software environment (version 3.3.1, R Foundation).11

Results

Five hundred ninety-three male patients (mean age, 70 years; range, 43-88 years) with GG 4 and 399 with GG 5 were identified, with a median follow-up of 6.4 years. Baseline characteristics and clinical outcome are provided in Table 2 and eTable 2 in the Supplement. Individual trial Cox proportional hazard models for DMFS, CSS, and OS suggested variable effects between GG 4 and GG 5 patients (eTable 3 in the Supplement). The NMA found that among patients with GG 4 disease, both LTADT and STADT offered improved OS over RT alone (HR, 0.43; 95% CI, 0.26-0.72 and HR, 0.59; 95% CI, 0.38-0.93, respectively; P = .02 for both), whereas lifelong ADT did not (HR, 0.84; 95% CI, 0.54-1.30; P = .44) (Figure)4,5,6,7,8,9 (eFigure 3 and eTable 4 in the Supplement). Among patients with GG 5 disease, lifelong ADT improved OS (HR, 0.48; 95% CI, 0.31-0.76; P = .01), whereas neither LTADT nor STADT did (HR, 0.80; 95% CI, 0.45-1.44 and HR, 1.13; 95% CI, 0.69-1.87; P = .45 and P = .64, respectively).

Table 2. Crude Event Incidence for Metastases, Prostate Cancer-Specific Mortality, and All-Cause Mortality.

Trial Arm GG 4 GG 5
Total No. Total No.
DM PCSM ACM DM PCM ACM
RTOG
Pilepich et al, 20054 RT alone 61 50 23 49 47 42 25 41
Lifelong ADT 59 43 17 38 49 39 12 38
Pilepich et al, 20015 RT Alone 33 29 16 27 36 31 25 30
STADT 29 25 12 25 30 25 16 25
Horwitz et al, 20086 STADT 93 78 36 79 78 67 27 64
LTADT 92 79 20 79 74 60 20 60
EORTC
Bolla et al, 19977 RT alone 17 15 8 13 7 6 4 4
LTADT 13 6 2 5 6 2 0 2
Bolla et al, 20098 STADT 56 22 3 18 34 18 9 15
LTADT 75 21 9 21 21 7 3 6
Bolla et al, 20169 RT Alone 29 10 2 10 8 4 3 4
STADT 36 7 2 6 9 3 2 2
Total 593 385 150 370 399 304 146 291
Event rate, % 64.9 25.3 62.4 76.2 36.6 72.9

Abbreviations: ACM, number of all-cause mortality events; ADT, androgen deprivation therapy; DM, number of distant metastases; GS, Gleason score; LTADT, long-term ADT; PCSM, number of prostate cancer-specific mortality events; RT, radiation therapy; STADT, short-term ADT.

Figure. Forest Plots of Androgen Deprivation Therapy (ADT) and Gleason Grade Group (GG) Associated With All-Cause Mortality.

Figure.

Forest plot derived from network meta-analysis of ADT effect on all-cause mortality, stratified by (A) GG 4 vs (B) GG 5. Note that the reference value (HR 1.00) for each forest plot is radiation therapy (RT) alone. The hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) are presented in ascending order, with their associated P-score (a frequentist analog to the surface under the cumulative ranking curve). C, Forest plot derived from meta-analysis of association of GG 4 vs GG 5 with all-cause mortality, stratified by ADT duration. HRs and 95% CI for each ADT duration stratum are presented, along with corresponding treatment effect (TE; log[HR]) and the standard error of the TE (seTE).

Forest plot analyses of outcomes from traditional random-effects meta-analyses comparing GG 4 and GG 5 patients are shown in the Figure and in eFigure 4 in the Supplement. Both among patients receiving STADT and among all patients overall (regardless of ADT duration), those with GG 5 disease had inferior OS compared with those with GG 4 disease (HR, 1.40; 95% CI, 1.05-1.88; P = .05 for STADT and HR, 1.25; 95% CI, 1.07-1.47; P = .04 all patients). Among patients receiving LTADT or lifelong ADT, there was no significant difference in OS between GG 5 and GG 4 disease (HR, 1.21; 95% CI, 0.89-1.65 and HR, 0.85; 95% CI, 0.53-1.37; P = .23 and P = .52, respectively).

Discussion

In this individual patient-level meta-analysis, longer durations of ADT were found to improve clinical outcomes for patients with GG 4 and GG 5 disease in distinct ways. Among patients with GG 4 disease, both LTADT and STADT offered improved OS over RT alone, whereas lifelong ADT did not. Among patients with GG 5 disease, lifelong ADT improved OS over RT alone, whereas neither LTADT nor STADT did. Overall, and among patients receiving STADT, GG 5 disease was associated with worse OS; LTADT and lifelong ADT appear to mitigate this difference. Similar patterns were seen for DMFS and CSS endpoints, though these endpoints contained more uncertainty than the OS endpoint owing to potential misclassification. These results also provide prospectively obtained evidence that patients with GG 5 disease receiving RT have inferior outcomes compared with those with GG 4 disease.

Androgen deprivation therapy may improve outcomes in RT-treated patients with high-risk PCa through a combination of systemic effects on micrometastatic disease and direct radiosensitizing effects in the prostate,12 and adjuvant ADT has been shown to suppress the induction of androgen receptor activity by RT.13 If GG 5 PCa has greater RT induction of androgen receptor activity than GG 4 disease, a longer period of adjuvant ADT would be required for a similar therapeutic effect, explaining the clear benefit of lifelong ADT in treating GG 5 disease. The lack of any significant survival benefit for lifelong ADT in treating GG 4 disease may reflect a lack of statistical power; for CSS and DMFS, it may also reflect the relative uncertainty of these endpoints. Alternatively, the known sequelae of lifelong ADT may counteract any potential oncologic benefit, potentially explaining the lack of an OS benefit.

The lack of benefit for any outcome with LTADT in GG 5 disease might suggest that the magnitude of the benefit may have been too small to detect even with a meta-analysis. A multi-institutional analysis of GG 5 patients identified a significant CSS benefit to extreme dose escalation with a brachytherapy boost over standard dose-escalated RT, despite a significantly longer ADT duration with standard dose-escalated RT.14 Although this might suggest that less radiosensitizing ADT is required with higher RT doses, the median duration of ADT with extreme dose escalation was still 12 months, and the study was retrospective. Finally, a recent randomized trial comparing 18 months of ADT with 36 months of ADT for high-risk PCa did not identify a difference in survival outcomes with longer duration ADT.9 However, were data from this trial to be incorporated into the present meta-analysis, patients receiving 18 months of ADT would likely be considered as having received an intermediate duration between LTADT and STADT, rather than receiving STADT.

Limitations

There are several limitations to this study. Foremost, this constitutes an unplanned subset analysis of multiple randomized clinical trials, and thus the findings must be interpreted with the knowledge that none of the trials were specifically powered or designed to evaluate differences in outcome based on GG.15 Limitations include a lack of centralized pathology review, the use of radiation doses that would be considered substandard today, and the high enrichment of patients with locally advanced lesions compared with modern cohorts (66% with cT3 disease). Regarding pathology review, this is a limitation with regard to concordance between studies but also, owing to changes in the Gleason grading system over time, may affect the applicability of these findings to GG 4 and GG 5 PCas diagnosed in the present day. However, all of these limitations apply to the general applicability of these trials to the modern era, yet they still define the present standard of care. In addition, the most robust effect noted is that of lifelong ADT in the GG 5 group and was observed in a trial initiated 31 years ago in which staging studies were relatively insensitive. It is possible that the benefit of lifelong ADT might come primarily from controlling occult metastases, rather than reflecting the biology of the primary disease. However, this would be expected to be true for patients with GG 4 disease as well, and lifelong ADT did not offer a statistically significant benefit in those patients. Finally, the studies varied in the use of concurrent nonsteroidal anti-androgens in conjunction with luteinizing hormone releasing hormone agonists, as well as the timing of initiation of ADT.

Conclusions

Prolonged durations of ADT improve survival outcomes in both GG 4 disease and GG 5 disease, albeit in different ways. Use of STADT and LTADT offer OS improvements in GG 4 disease, but not GG 5 disease; the opposite is true for lifelong ADT. Strategies to maintain the efficacy of ADT while minimizing its duration (eg, enhanced potency agents) should be investigated.

Supplement.

eFigure 1. Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Flowchart

eFigure 2. Network Plot of Randomized Trials with Available Direct Comparisons

eFigure 3. Forest Plots Derived from Network Meta-Analysis of Androgen Deprivation Therapy Effect on Survival Outcomes, Stratified by Gleason Grade

eFigure 4. Forest Plots of the Effect of Gleason Grade Group 4 vs. 5 on Survival Outcomes, Stratified by Androgen Deprivation Therapy (ADT) Duration

eTable 1. Summary of Trials Included in Network Meta-Analysis

eTable 2. Patient Demographics

eTable 3. Individual Study Cox Proportional Hazard Models

eTable 4. Network Meta-Analysis of Androgen Deprivation Therapy on Survival Outcomes

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Associated Data

This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.

Supplementary Materials

Supplement.

eFigure 1. Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Flowchart

eFigure 2. Network Plot of Randomized Trials with Available Direct Comparisons

eFigure 3. Forest Plots Derived from Network Meta-Analysis of Androgen Deprivation Therapy Effect on Survival Outcomes, Stratified by Gleason Grade

eFigure 4. Forest Plots of the Effect of Gleason Grade Group 4 vs. 5 on Survival Outcomes, Stratified by Androgen Deprivation Therapy (ADT) Duration

eTable 1. Summary of Trials Included in Network Meta-Analysis

eTable 2. Patient Demographics

eTable 3. Individual Study Cox Proportional Hazard Models

eTable 4. Network Meta-Analysis of Androgen Deprivation Therapy on Survival Outcomes


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