Each prostate-cancer treatment was associated with a distinct pattern of change in quality-of-life domains related to urinary, sexual, bowel, and hormonal function. These changes influenced satisfaction with treatment outcomes among patients and their spouses or partners.

Objectives. Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) is an increasingly important endpoint in prostate cancer care. However, pivotal issues that are not fully assessed in existing HRQOL instruments include irritative urinary symptoms, hormonal symptoms, and multi-item scores quantifying bother between urinary, sexual, bowel, and hormonal domains. We sought to develop a novel instrument to facilitate more comprehensive assessment of prostate cancer-related HRQOL. Methods. Instrument development was based on advice from an expert panel and prostate cancer patients, which led to expanding the 20-item University of California-Los Angeles Prostate Cancer Index (UCLA-PCI) to the 50-item Expanded Prostate Index Composite (EPIC). Summary and subscale scores were derived by content and factor analyses. Reliability and validity were assessed by test-retest correlation, Cronbach's alpha coefficient, interscale correlation, and EPIC correlation with other validated instruments. Results. Test-retest reliability and internal consistency were high for EPIC urinary, bowel, sexual, and hormonal domain summary scores (each r Ն0.80 and Cronbach's alpha Ն0.82) and for most domain-specific subscales. Correlations between function and bother subscales within domains were high (r Ͼ0.60). Correlations between different primary domains were consistently lower, indicating that these domains assess distinct HRQOL components. EPIC domains had weak to modest correlations with the Medical Outcomes Study 12-item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-12), indicating rationale for their concurrent use. Moderate agreement was observed between EPIC domains relevant to the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy Prostate module (FACT-P) and the American Urological Association Symptom Index (AUA-SI), providing criterion validity without excessive overlap. Conclusions. EPIC is a robust prostate cancer HRQOL instrument that complements prior instruments by measuring a broad spectrum of urinary, bowel, sexual, and hormonal symptoms, thereby providing a unique tool for comprehensive assessment of HRQOL issues important in contemporary prostate cancer management. A s prostate cancer is increasingly diagnosed at early stages with favorable survival outcomes, the basis on which patients select primary therapy has shifted toward consideration of health-related quality of life (HRQOL). 1,2 However, no HRQOL instrument has previously been developed and validated in a setting concurrently representing each of the three most common current interventions Supported by National Institutes of Health grants 5P30CA46598 and 1P50CA69568 (National Cancer Institute Prostate Cancer Specialized Projects of Oncology Research Excellence [SPORE]), American Cancer Society Clinical Career Development Award 96-77 (M.G.S.), Robert Wood Johnson Scholars Program (J.T.W.), and American Foundation for Urological Diseases Fellowship Award (J.T.W.). From the Veterans Affairs Center for Practice Management and Outcomes Research; Ann Arbor Veterans Affairs Medical

Advances in the diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer have improved the ability to stratify patients by risk and allowed clinicians to recommend therapy based on cancer prognosis and patient preference. Initial treatment with chemotherapy can improve survival compared with androgen deprivation therapy. Abiraterone, enzalutamide, and other agents can improve outcomes in men with metastatic prostate cancer resistant to traditional hormonal therapy.

The National Institutes of Health chronic prostatitis symptom index provides a valid outcome measure for men with chronic prostatitis. The index is psychometrically robust, easily self-administered and highly discriminative. It was formally developed and psychometrically validated, and may be useful in clinical practice as well as research protocols.

Purpose-Multivariate prognostic instruments aim to predict risk of recurrence among patients with localized prostate cancer. We sought to devise a novel risk assessment tool which would be a strong predictor of outcome across various levels of risk, and which could be easily applied and intuitively understood.Materials and Methods-We studied 1,439 men who had undergone radical prostatectomy and were followed in the CaPSURE database (a longitudinal, community-based disease registry of prostate cancer patients) diagnosed between 1992 and 2001 were included. Disease recurrence was defined as prostate specific antigen (PSA) ≥0.2 ng/ml on 2 consecutive occasions following prostatectomy, or a second cancer treatment more than six months after surgery. The UCSF-CAPRA score was developed using pre-operative PSA, Gleason score, clinical T-stage, biopsy results, and age. The index was developed and validated using Cox proportional hazards and life table analyses.Results-210 patients (15%) recurred, 145 by PSA criteria and 65 by second treatment. Based on the results of the Cox analysis, points were assigned based on PSA (0-4 points), Gleason score (0-3), T stage (0-1), age (0-1), and biopsy data (0-1). The CAPRA score range is 0 to 10, with roughly double the risk of recurrence for each 2-point increase in score. Recurrence-free survival at 5 years ranged from 85% for a CAPRA score of 0-1 (95% CI 73-92%) to 8% for a score of 7-10 (95% CI 0-28%). The concordance index for the CAPRA score was 0.66. Conclusions-The UCSF-CAPRA score is a straightforward yet powerful preoperative risk assessment tool. It must be externally validated in future studies.