Development of a Novel Signature Integrating Clinical, Imaging And Epigenetic Information to Tailor Pelvic Nodal Treatment in Prostate Cancer

Radical prostatectomy (RP) represents one treatment option for clinically localized prostate cancer (PCa). The most updated guidelines of the European Association of Urology indicate the need to perform ePLND in patients with a lymph node invasion (LNI) risk >5% according to the Briganti nomogram. This approach allows sparing ePLND in two thirds of contemporary surgically treated patients; however, many patients still receive ePLND in the absence of lymph node metastases. This is clinically relevant, since ePLND is associated with significant risks of complications.

Improving the ability to detect LNI in PCa would be important for two main reasons: (1) enabling more timely treatments that may improve patient outcomes, and (2) avoiding significant overtreatment and reducing ePLND-related toxicity.

The hypothesis of the present study is that lymphatic spread of PCa cells may be predicted through integration of clinical variables, radiologic findings, and epigenomic information. The objective of the study is to develop an accurate predictive model including radiological and epigenomic information.