Palliative Transurethral Resection of the Prostate in Patients with Metastatic Prostate Cancer: A Prospective Study of 188 Patients

Purpose: Palliative transurethral resection of the prostate (pTURP) in metastatic prostate cancer (mPCa) is reported to be rarely applied in clinics. We prospectively evaluated the ability of pTURP to achieve tumor control in patients with mPCa. Patients and Methods: A prospective study of patients with mPCa from 2011 to 2018 was conducted. The patients were divided into two groups: a pTURP + androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) group and an ADT group. Castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC)-free survival and cancer-specific survival (CSS) were analyzed as research endpoints between the groups using a Kaplan-Meier estimator. Results: A total of 188 patients with mPCa were enrolled in the study from our center, of which 110 patients were in the pTURP + ADT group, and 78 patients were in the ADT group. The basic clinical characteristics were comparable between the groups. There were no reoperations or severe complications in the pTURP + ADT group. The median follow-up was 29 months. The median CRPC-free survival was significantly increased when the 7-month prostate-specific antigen (PSA) was <4 ng/mL (34 vs 6, p < 0.01) and bone metastasis was ≤5 (25 vs 10, p < 0.01) but not in the pTURP + ADT group (16 vs 12, p = 0.267). The 3-year CSS was higher in the pTURP + ADT group than that in the ADT group (95.9% vs 64.9%, p = 0.004), as well as when the 7-month PSA was <4 ng/mL compared to ≥4 ng/mL (90.7% vs 36.6%, p < 0.01) and when bone metastasis was ≤5 compared to >5 (82.2% vs 63.2%, p < 0.01). In subgroup analysis, pTURP + ADT could significantly improve patients' CSS when PSA ≥65 ng/mL, Gleason Score (GS) ≥8, and bone metastasis ≤5. Conclusions: We used our center-based cancer database to analyze survival in patients with mPCa undergoing pTURP. In the study population, pTURP + ADT was indicated to benefit CSS and shown to be safe. Moreover, we suggest that mPCa patients with PSA ≥65 ng/mL, GS ≥8, and bone metastasis ≤5 may perform pTURP before ADT.