Neoadjuvant hormonal therapy and radical prostatectomy for locally advanced prostate cancer

The management of locally advanced prostate cancer remains controversial. Cause-specific survival rates are high for organ-confined disease, but there is a disturbingly high incidence of positive margins in radical prostatectomy specimens. Thus, there has been much interest in neoadjuvant hormonal therapy as a means of shrinking the primary tumor. Both nonrandomized and randomized trials have revealed reductions in tumor size, but the effect on tumor stage and patient survival is less clear. Because the long-term value is not clear, and because neoadjuvant hormonal therapy does have side effects and increases treatment costs, it is at present not advisable outside the clinical research setting.