ABSTRACT
Prostate cancer is a heterogeneous disease with very different phenotypes. Defining the subgroup of patients who are at high risk for developing recurrence after local treatment is a priority.
Historically, initial risk assessment was based on clinical staging and anatomic extent of the disease, assessed by digital rectal examination (DRE) and imaging. However, a large proportion of patients with clinically organ-confined disease are subsequently found to have extracapsular disease at the time of surgery. Such patients are at high risk of recurrence. Partin et al1 developed a nomogram which improves the ability to clinically predict pathologic stage, taking into account biopsy Gleason grade and prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level along with clinical stage.
