Guidelines for Reporting Studies of Treatment for Prostatic Cancer

At the Second Prout’s Neck Conference, “A Multidisciplinary Analysis of Controversies in the Management of Prostate Cancer,” held October 17–19, 1986, leading surgeons, radiotherapists, and oncologists concerned with the treatment of prostatic cancer presented results of their clinical studies. Also attending the conference were a number of laboratory scientists studying prostatic cancer at a basic level in the hope that better understanding might permit prevention of the disease or lead to insights permitting improved treatment. The main purpose of the clinical presentations was to compare treatment results for various categories of patients. Unfortunately, there have been very few randomized clinical trials comparing treatments for this disease and most of the presentations described uncontrolled case series. This alone made it difficult, if not impossible, to determine which treatments were best for which kinds of patients, but this problem was compounded by a lack of agreement concerning definitions of (1) tumor grade, (2) stage, (3) progression and response, and (4) by failure to use common standards for statistical analysis and reporting of results. At the end of the conference, the chairman, Dr. Coffey, appointed four committees charged with coming up with proposed guidelines in these areas in the hope that these problems could be minimized in the future. The authors of this article were asked to deal with standards for statistical analysis and reporting results of therapy.

在第二次普罗特（Prout）的脖子会议上，“对前列腺癌管理中的争议的多学科分析”，1986年10月17日至1996年，领先的外科医生，放射治疗师和与前列腺癌的治疗相关的肿瘤学家提出了他们临床研究的一定程度，这是一个更好地理解了他们的临床研究。疾病或导致临床表现的主要目的是对各种患者的治疗结果进行比较。缺乏关于（1）肿瘤等级的定义的一致性，（2）阶段，（3）进展和反应，（4）在会议结束时未能使用公共标准进行统计分析和报告。分析和报告结果。