Surgical margin and Gleason score as predictors of postoperative recurrence in prostate cancer with or without chromosome 8p allelic imbalance.

Background: Identification of prostate cancer patients at risk for postoperative disease recurrence is an important clinical issue. Existing pathological markers can predict disease recurrence only to a certain extent, and there is a need for more accurate predictors.

Methods: Using "counting alleles," a novel experimental method, we determined allelic status of chromosome 8p in 107 prostatectomy specimens. Statistical analyses examined the association between pathologic predictors (Gleason score, stage, surgical margin, etc.) and cancer recurrence in patients with and without 8p allelic imbalance (8p AI).

Results: 8p AI cancers were more likely to recur in the presence of a positive surgical margin, whereas recurrence of 8p retaining tumors was associated with the Gleason score, but not with the surgical margin.

Conclusions: Our findings suggest that chromosome 8p allelic status affects the predictive value of "traditional" markers of prostate cancer recurrence. If confirmed by larger studies, these results may have important clinical implications.