Marieke van Son

110 CHAPTER 6 Table 1 – Baseline characteristics (n=100) Median (IQR) or percentages Age (years) 71 (67 – 74) Primary treatment EBRT LDR-BT Whole-gland HDR-BT Ultrafocal HDR-BT 53% 44% 1% 2% History of ADT* No Yes, neo-adjuvant Yes, adjuvant 80% 6% 14% TNM-stage on imaging T T2 T3 T4 62% 36% 2% N N0 N1 96% 4% M M0 M1 97% 3% Size of the CTV (cc) 10 (7 – 16) Baseline quality of life scores^ Urinary symptoms 12 (8 – 21) Bowel symptoms 0 (0 – 8) Sexual activity 67 (50 – 83) Sexual functioning 50 (42 – 67) Legend: IQR: interquartile range, EBRT: external beam radiotherapy, LDR-BT: low-dose-rate brachytherapy, HDR-BT: high-dose-rate brachytherapy, ADT: androgen deprivation therapy, TNM- stage: tumor/node/metastasis stage, CTV: clinical target volume. * As part of primary treatment. ^ EORTC QLQ-PR25, scale 0 – 100. Figure 1 shows the modeled quality of life trends over time for each HR-QoL domain, displaying least squares means with their standard error (SE) at each follow-up time point. Urinary symptoms (Figure 1-a) increased with +11 points in the first month after treatment (p<0.01). Afterwards, the score recovered almost completely back to baseline level (least squares mean difference of 2 points between baseline and 36 months follow-up, p=0.5). Bowel symptoms (Figure 1-b) remained stable at a lower level over time, with a maximum least squares mean difference of +3 points at 6 months (p=0.04). Sexual activity (Figure 1-c) showed a similar stable trend, with a maximum least squares mean difference of +4 points at 3 months (p=0.1). Sexual functioning (Figure 1-d) showed a downward trend over time, with a temporary recovery between six and twelve months, but with a maximum least squares mean difference of -12 points at 24 months (p<0.01).