What do the probabilities of organ confined disease, extra capsular penetration, seminal vesicle involvement, and lymph node involvement mean?
After surgery, it is common to assign a patient into one of four groups (known as pathologic stages) depending on the extent of disease. These groups are (1) disease confined to the prostate, without spread into the seminal vesicles or the lymph nodes; (2) disease that is evident outside the prostatic capsule, but has not spread into the seminal vesicles or lymph nodes; (3) disease that has spread into the seminal vesicles but not the spread into the pelvic lymph nodes; or (4) disease that has spread into the lymph nodes. The probabilities from our prediction tool are predictions of how likely it is that the patient would be placed into each of these categories of pathologic stage. These are predictions based on clinical stage, pretreatment PSA, and biopsy Gleason grade. Note that additional diagnostics such as imaging (CT, MRI, etc.) might affect these predictions. For example, the patient who has had an MRI that suggests organ-confined disease might have a higher probability of actua