Lack of Benefit from the Addition of External Beam Radiotherapy to Brachytherapy for Intermediate- and High-Risk Prostate Cancer

The efficacy of brachytherapy monotherapy for unfavorable-risk prostate cancer is unknown. Using a cohort of 5836 patients with intermediate- or high-risk disease treated with brachytherapy, we found the addition of external beam radiotherapy to not improve prostate cancer-specific mortality. This lack of benefit was observed for favorable intermediate-, unfavorable intermediate-, and high-risk subgroups. These results suggest that certain patients with unfavorable-risk disease treated with brachytherapy may not benefit from the addition of external beam radiotherapy.

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