title: Can predictive models for prostate cancer patients derived in the United States of America be utilized in European patients? A validation study of the Partin tables.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Prostate cancer patients in the US and Europe differ due to selection and treatment differences. Accuracy of predictive tools derived in the US might therefore suffer when applied to European patients. We tested the validity of the widely accepted Partin tables for their ability to predict pathologic stage in German patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  Clinical and pathological characteristics were obtained from 1,298 consecutive men with clinically localized prostate cancer undergoing radical prostatectomy at the University Hospital Hamburg between January 1992 and February 2000. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was performed to compare observed and predicted Partin rates for each pathologic stage.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The rate for organ confinement was 56% in Hamburg patients compared to 48% in the Partin study. The rates of Hamburg patients for extracapsular extension without seminal vesicle or lymph node involvement were 25%, for seminal vesicle without lymph node involvement 14% and for lymph node metastases 5%. The corresponding rates of the Partin study were 40, 7 and 5%, respectively. The accuracy of Partin table derived probability was high with an area under the ROC curve of 0.817 (95% CI, 0.757-0.876) for organ confinement and 0.807 (95% CI, 0.781-0.833) for lymph node involvement.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our study demonstrated that predictive tools for prostate cancer developed in the US could be applied to European patients with comparable accuracy to that reported for validation studies performed with US patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Urology, University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf, Martinistr. 52, D-20246 Hamburg, Germany. graefen@uke.uni-hamburg.de
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Graefen
authors.forename: Herbert
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Augustin
authors.forename: Pierre I
authors.initials: PI
authors.lastname: Karakiewicz
authors.forename: Peter G
authors.initials: PG
authors.lastname: Hammerer
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Haese
authors.forename: Juri
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Palisaar
authors.forename: Jakob
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Blonski
authors.forename: Salvator
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Fernandez
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Erbersdobler
authors.forename: Hartwig
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Huland
mesh_terms: D005060:Europe; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015233:Models, Statistical; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011471:Prostatic Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis*; D014481:United States