Efficacy of repeated PSMA PET-directed radiotherapy for oligorecurrent prostate cancer after initial curative therapy

The cornerstone of treatment for non-castrated metastatic prostate cancer (mPCa) is androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), which has remained unchanged over the past years [1]. The negative impact of ADT on quality of life (QoL) [1] has resulted in a search for alternatives for well-selected patients using personalized treatment concepts on the basis of prostate-specific membrane antigen ligand positron-emission tomography (PSMA PET) [2‐5]. There is increasing evidence that patients with a limited number of metastases have a better prognosis than patients with widespread metastatic disease, and data outside large prospective trials suggest that metastasis-directed therapies (MDTs) for mPCa patients with a so-called “oligometastatic status,” based on a generally accepted imaging-based cut-off of five metastases, improve the clinical outcome [2, 6]. The recent introduction of PSMA ligand PET has substantially improved the diagnostic accuracy of staging at low prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels [7‐11], allowing refined and well-monitored individualized radio-oncological treatment concepts that aim to improve PSA kinetics, prolong progression-free survival, defer the initiation of ADT, and potentially cure the patient [2‐5, 12]. The STOMP [13] and POPSTAR trials [14], as well as the data published by Kneebone et al. [15], demonstrated that MDT alone might delay ADT for a relevant period. However, approximately half of the patients will develop oligoprogressive disease after MDT [13], making these patients amenable to repeated MDT and further improving the PSA kinetics and delaying the initiation of ADT [16]. Data on the feasibility and clinical outcome of a second MDT guided by PSMA PET imaging after previous PSMA PET-directed radiotherapy (RT) are very limited.

Thus, in the current study, we assessed the outcomes of patients with mPCa diagnosed with oligorecurrent disease after initial curative therapy who were treated with a second PSMA PET-directed radiotherapy (RT).

Between June 2014 and February 2019, 32 hormone-naïve patients with oligorecurrent PCa after primary curative therapy received a first PSMA PET-directed RT as MDT for all metastases, and after oligoprogression, the patients received a definitive second PSMA PET-directed RT for all metastases. This retrospective study was approved by the local ethics committee (no. 3661-2017), and all cases were discussed and approved for RT by the multidisciplinary uro-oncologic board. Oligometastatic disease was defined as ≤5 visceral, bone, or lymph node metastases. The patients’ characteristics are summarized in Table 1.

The implementation of PSMA ligand PET imaging has substantially improved the diagnostic accuracy of detecting metastatic PCa at low PSA levels [7, 8, 20]. Although large randomized prospective studies are lacking, MDT is considered a viable treatment option for well-selected patients with oligorecurrent PCa [21]. Furthermore, there is still controversy about the optimal timing to initiate palliative ADT for asymptomatic metastatic patients because of the lack of prospective trials in the PSA era [1]. Furthermore, ADT offers no curative potential [1] and significantly impairs QoL in a relevant number of patients [22].

Smaller prospective trials with heterogeneous patient cohorts, including one with choline PET imaging [13], one with PSMA ligand PET imaging [14], and one with sodium fluoride (NA-F) PET imaging [15], showed encouraging results for MDT in oligometastatic prostate cancer. The STOMP [13] and POPSTAR trials [14], as well as the data published by Kneebone et al. [15], demonstrated that MDT alone might delay ADT for a relevant period. However, patients with MDT alone develop biochemical progression earlier than patients with MDT plus ADT [13‐15]. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there are no published data comparing MDT alone versus MDT plus ADT with regard to hard endpoints such as prostate carcinoma-specific survival. In our opinion, patients must be well informed that ADT is the standard of care and any type of MDT is an individual treatment concept outside the current guidelines, although the optimal timing of initiation of ADT at low PSA levels remains unknown [1]. Nevertheless, approximately half of the patients will develop oligoprogressive disease after MDT alone [7], making these patients amenable to a second MDT and further delaying the start of ADT [13, 23, 24]. Additionally, due to the lack of data from prospective trials, the current guidelines do not reflect the diagnostic accuracy of PSMA ligand PET staging at low PSA levels to select patients who should or should not receive ADT [1].

To the best of our knowledge, a second RT for oligorecurrent PCa on the basis of PSMA ligand PET staging and restaging has never been reported. We showed that 28.1% (9/32) of patients did not need ADT at the last follow-up, resulting in a median ADT-FS of 31.0 (95% CI 20.1–41.8) months, which is approximately the same as the duration that other authors have reported [13, 23, 24]. None of the published data [13, 23, 24] included PSMA ligand PET staging for MDT that led to MDT at higher PSA levels, particularly increasing the likelihood that patients had an underestimated extent of lymph node metastases [11, 22]. In addition, the initiation of ADT based on the urologist’s choice at low PSA levels might be a confounder for ADT-FS and, therefore, hamper the comparison of these retrospective data.

We found that the type of irradiated metastases at oligorecurrence was the most important clinical parameter for ADT-FS. Patients with bone metastases had a significantly higher risk (p = 0.007, OR 4.51; 95% CI 1.8–13.47) of needing ADT at their last follow-up compared to patients with only lymph node metastases. Population-based data supported our findings because patients with bone metastases have a worse prognosis and lower cancer-specific survival (CSS) than those with lymph node metastases [25, 26]. A recently published SEER database analysis suggested that patients with stage M1a tumors receive significantly greater clinical benefits from local therapies to the prostate than patients with stage M1b tumors [27]. Although the median number of irradiated metastases per patient at the first PSMA PET-directed RT and at the second PSMA PET-directed RT was the same (n = 2; p = 0.90), the median BPFS_2 after the second PSMA PET-directed RT was significantly shorter than the median BPFS_1 after the first PSMA PE-directed RT (8.0 months vs. 16.0 months, p = 0.03; 95% CI 1.9–8.3). Moreover, the shorter BPFS after the second PSMA PET-directed RT was associated with a more widespread pattern of metastases (increase in bone metastases and extrapelvic lymph node metastases), which is a possible indicator for an evolving tumor biology. Until now, the evolutionary history of metastatic prostate cancer of monoclonal versus polyclonal cell seeding leading to a linear versus branching pattern of metastatic spread [28] at low PSA levels remains unknown. Many genomic and nongenomic biomarkers have been investigated in mPC [29, 30], but none of these markers are available outside of dedicated study protocols for clinical routine. On the other hand, exploratory analyses of patients with limited tumor burden according to the CHAARTED criteria revealed no OS benefit for escalated systemic therapy using either the combination of ADT + docetaxel [31] or ADT + enzalutamide [32] compared to ADT alone, indicating a different biology. With regard to PSA kinetics as a biomarker, we found that the median PSA-dt at the second PSMA PET-directed RT was significantly shorter than the median PSA-dt at the first PSMA PET-directed RT (5.8 versus 8.7 months, p = 0.05), indicating a biologically more aggressive disease at oligoprogression after the first PSMA PET-directed RT. Furthermore, a PSA-dt <6 months, compared to a PSA-dt >6 months, showed a trend towards significance (p = 0.12) in multivariate analyses for a worse BPFS_1. Ost el. showed that patients with non-castrate mPCA and one metastasis plus a PSA-dt >3 months had a 5-year CSS rate of 100%, whereas patients with a PSA-dt <3 months plus >1 metastasis had a 5-year CSS rate of only 8% [33]. There is controversy about the radiation dose, field size, and elective node irradiation when PSMA ligand PET is used for MDT of oligorecurrent mPCa. Data from the choline PET era confirmed that choline PET underestimated the extent of lymph node metastases [34], which is reflected by the fact that approximately two out of three patients treated with SBRT for pelvic lymph node metastases relapsed with lymph node metastases [25, 35], leading to a higher relapse rate than that after elective node irradiation (ENI), although the relapse rate concerning bone and visceral metastases seems to be comparable between SBRT and ENI [36]. The extent of lymph node metastases can be assessed more precisely by PSMA PET than by choline PET [7]. Therefore, we do not recommend ENI because the initiation of systemic therapies according to high- and low-burden disease and the corresponding prognosis do not depend on lymph node metastases, but on bone and visceral metastases [1]. In addition, other retrospective data from the PSMA PET era assessing the pattern of progression of lesion-directed RT without ENI of contralateral lymphatic drainage showed a significant increase in retroperitoneal and osseous metastases and only a very small number of contralateral pelvic recurrences [2]. These results may indicate that ENI may have been a necessary compensator for the poor detection rate of lymph node metastases of choline PET scans.

Some limitations of this study should be acknowledged. The retrospective nature has inherent limitations and might have introduced selection bias, although the presented cohort had a strict follow-up schedule and staging was performed only with PSMA ligand PET. Therefore, fewer metastases should be missed with this method than with conventional imaging and choline PET [11, 20, 35], leading to well-selected patients [37]. Moreover, the second PSMA ligand PET for restaging purposes allows assessment of the metabolic response after RT, leading to a reliable discrimination of new metastases and successfully irradiated metastases [38]. In addition, the study included a selected cohort with only high-risk and very high-risk patients. Therefore, caution should be taken when generalizing the observed results for patients with intermediate- or low-risk oligorecurrent PCa. Additionally, the sample size of 32 patients limited the statistical power, although the observed clinical results are robust and contribute significantly to the discussion of a second PSMA PET-directed MDT after curative primary therapy in a quickly changing clinical field.

Repeated PMSA PET-directed RT for oligorecurrent prostate cancer postponed ADT without significant toxicities. If patients are followed up closely, including PSMA PET scans, repeated PSMA PET-directed RT represents a viable treatment option for well-informed and well-selected patients.