Background: The optimal duration of androgen deprivation (AD) combined with high-dose radiotherapy (HDRT) in prostate cancer remains controversial. The DART trial was designed to determine whether long-term AD (LTAD) is superior to short-term AD (STAD) when combined with HDRT. In this report, we present the ten-year final results.Methods: The eligibility criteria included cT1c-T3aN0M0 adenocarcinoma of the prostate with intermediate and high-risk factors and PSA < 100 ng/ml. All patients received four months of neoadjuvant and concomitant AD (STAD) + HDRT (median radiation dose 78 Gy) before randomisation to adjuvant goserelin for two years (LTAD). Patients were stratified by risk group (intermediate risk [IR] versus high risk [HR]). Study endpoints included overall survival (OS), metastasis-free survival (MFS), disease-free survival (DFS), and biochemical disease-free survival (bDFS). OS rates were compared with Cox regression and cancer-specific death, MFS, and bDFS using competing-risk models. Follow-up is now complete, and this is the final report on the main endpoints. This trial is registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT 02175212) and in the EU Clinical Trials Register (EudraCT 2005-000417-36).Results: A total of 355 patients were enrolled from Nov 7, 2005 to Dec 20, 2010. The 354 found to be eligible were randomly assigned to STAD (177) and LTAD (177). The median follow-up was 119 months (IQR 100·6-124·3). The ten-year bDFS for LTAD and STAD was 70·2% and 62·3%, respectively (hazard ratio [HR] 1·19, 95% CI 0·70-2·00). At ten years, OS was 78·4% for LTAD and 73·3% for STAD (HR 1·20, 95% CI 0·79-1·82), and MFS was 76·0% and 70·9% for LTAD and STAD, respectively (HR 1·12, 95% CI, 0·46-2·73). For high-risk patients treated with LTAD, the ten-year bDFS was 67·2% and 53·7% for STAD (HR 1·11, 95% CI 0·61-2·02). The ten-year OS was 78·5% and 67·0% for STAD (HR 1·74, 95% CI 0·99-3·06), and the ten-year MFS was 76·6% and 65·0% for LTAD and STAD, respectively (HR 1·12, 95% CI 0·41 to 3·07). Only 11 patients died from prostate cancer, all of them in the high-risk subgroup.Conclusion: After an extended ten-year follow-up, we were unable to confirm the statistically significant benefit of LTAD reported at five years. However, our results showed a consistent absolute benefit of 13% in bDFS, 11·6% in MFS, and 11·5% in OS in patients with high-risk prostate cancer. This finding is probably due to the competing risk of non–prostate cancer death in an aging population with a high life expectancy and to the lower number of events observed in both arms with respect to the initial expectations. Clinical Trial Registration Details: EudraCT, 2005-000417-36; NCT, 02175212.Funding Information: R. Funding was provided by a government grant (No. 04/2506) from the FIS (National Health Investigation Fund), a grant from the GICOR/SEOR (Grupo de Investigación en Oncología Radioterápica/Sociedad Española de Oncología Radioterápica), and AstraZeneca.Declaration of Interests: Dr Zapatero reports speaker honoraria from Astellas Pharma and Janssen, advisory board honoraria from Bayer, and research grants from AstraZeneca. Dr González-San Segundo reports speaker honoraria from Astellas Pharma and Janssen and advisory board honoraria from Bayer. Dr Maldonado reports speaker honoraria from Astellas Pharma, IPSEN, and Bayer and advisory board honoraria from Astellas Pharma and Bayer. Dr. Alvarez reports speaker honoraria from Astellas Pharma and Janssen and payment for medical research from Merck. Dr Casas reports speaker honoraria from Astellas Pharma, AstraZeneca, Bayer, GP Pharm, and Ipsen and advisory board honoraria from Janssen. Dr Boladeras reports speaker honoraria from Janssen, IPSEN, and Astellas Pharma and advisory board honoraria from Bayer. Dr Calvo, Dr Guerrero, Dr Vázquez de la Torre, Dr Pedro Olivé, Dr Cabeza, Dr Martin de Vidales, Dr Solé, Susana Vara, and Juan Luis Sanz declare that they have no conflicts of interest.Ethics Approval Statement: The study protocol and amendments were approved by the independent review board at each participating centre and conducted according to the provisions of the Declaration of Helsinki and the Good Clinical Practice Guidelines of the International Conference on Harmonisation. All patients provided their written informed consent before participating in the trial.
To analyse the long term outcome, pattern of failure and treatment related complications after radiation therapy (RT) with or without chemotherapy for stage I-III Hodgkin's disease (HD).Detailed records from 86 patients with stage I-III HD treated between 1989 and 1998, were retrospectively reviewed. Seventeen patients with favourable stage I-IIA were treated with RT alone, and the remaining 69 patients with combined modality treatment (CMT). Patients treated with RT received extended-field or subtotal nodal irradiation (STNI) to a total dose of 36-54 Gy, and patients with CMT, received involved-field irradiation to a lower doses, 26-40 Gy. The median follow-up time was 50 months (range 16-180).The 10-year overall survival (OS) for the whole group was 96% (SE 2%), 100% for stage I, 95% for stage II and 100% for stage III patients. Of potential prognostic factors analysed for statistical significance, only the response to chemotherapy (p=0.0393) was found to influence significantly OS rates. Twelve patients (13.9%) relapsed. Salvage treatment was effective in 10 of the 12 relapsed patients. The 10-year freedom from treatment failure (FFTF) was 79% (SE 6%). Although 8 (9.6%) of the 83 surviving patients developed late effects that could represent toxicity from the treatment, no patient died of late complications.RT alone for favourable early stage HD attains good survival rates with a modest treatment related morbidity. For patients with unfavourable stage II and stage III HD, CMT with limited RT provides a good to excellent prognosis.