A Gleason Score of 7 is often looked at as a middle range score, but clearly not as serious as an 8 or 9 score. Some recently combined research performed at the Department of Urology, University of Washington School of Public Health, Seattle, Washington and the Division of Public Health Sciences, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Washingtontook another look at that middle score of Gleason 7 and determined that not all 7s are the same.
They studied the different Gleason patterns as it pertains to prostate cancer specific mortality. Specifically,they evaluated the differences of the prostate specific mortality outcomes between the Gleason 7 scores of 4+3 vs. 3+4.
Their research sample consisted of men between 40 to 64 years old who were diagnosed with prostate cancer between the years of 1993 and 1996 in King County, Washington. They evaluated the recurrence/progression rates by using a follow-up survey and a medical record review. The mortality numbers and the cause of death were obtained from the Seattle-Puget Sound Surveillance, Epi