Are the Symptoms of Late Urogenital Toxicity After Radiotherapy for Localized Prostate Cancer Transient or Do They Worsen Over Time?

Our aim is to estimate incidence and prevalence rates as well as overall changes in the degree of late urogenital toxicity (UGT) over time in patients treated with 3D conformal radiotherapy (3DCRT) for localized prostate cancer (PC) and to explored possible predictive factors for late UGT.Ninety-four patients with localized PC, treated with 3DCRT with a total dose of 72Gy/2Gy/daily, were examined in this study. The median follow-up was 66 months. Many individual and clinical characteristics were explored as possible predictive factors for late UGT.Incidences of late UGT grade ≥1, ≥2 and grade 3 were 64.89% (61/94), 22.34% (21/94) and 7.4% (7/94), respectively. The prevalence rates of late UGT grade ≥1, grade ≥2 and grade 3 were 26.6%-36.3%, 3.2-13.3% and 1.06%-7.89%, respectively. Statistically significant positive trend was found favoring an increase in the degree of late UGT over time (b=0.028; p<0.001). In the MVA, previous abdominal and pelvic surgery (PAPS) and acute UGT were significantly associated with late UGT grade≥1 (p=0.007) and (p=0.013), respectively.We can conclude that the degree of late UGT increases over time. PAPS and the occurrence of any grade of acute UGT have a significant influence on the development of any grade of late UGT.