Hormone Therapy With or Without Surgery or Radiation Therapy in Treating Patients With Prostate Cancer

OBJECTIVES: * Compare the overall survival, disease specific survival, and time to progression in patients with locally advanced adenocarcinoma of the prostate treated with total androgen suppression with or without pelvic irradiation. * Compare the symptomatic control as measured by the rates of surgical interventions needed for control of local disease (e.g., transurethral resections, stent insertions, nephrostomies, and colostomies) in patients treated with these regimens. * Compare the quality of life of patients treated with these regimens. * Compare the sensitivity of the EORTC-QLQ-C30+3 and a trial-specific checklist (PR17) with the FACT-P questionnaire in measuring changes in quality of life of patients treated with these regimens. OUTLINE: This a randomized, multicenter study. Patients are stratified according to center, initial PSA level (less than 20 vs 20-50 vs greater than 50 ng/mL), method of node staging (clinical \[no CT scan\] vs radiological \[CT scan negative\] vs surgical), Gleason score (less than 8 vs 8-10), prior hormonal therapy (excluding orchiectomy) (yes vs no), and choice of hormonal therapy (bilateral orchiectomy with or without antiandrogen vs luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone \[LHRH\] with antiandrogen). Patients are randomized to 1 of 2 treatment arms. * Arm I: Patients receive antiandrogen therapy comprising oral flutamide every 8 hours, oral nilutamide every 8 hours for 1 month and then once daily, or oral bicalutamide once daily. Patients also choose to undergo bilateral orchiectomy or LHRH agonist therapy comprising goserelin subcutaneously (SC) every 4 weeks (short-acting formulation) or every 3 months (long-acting formulation), leuprolide intramuscularly every 4 weeks (short-acting formulation) or every 3 months (long-acting formulation), or buserelin SC every 8 weeks or every 12 weeks. Patients choosing orchiectomy may receive an antiandrogen for at least 6 weeks before surgery to counter any flare phenomenon and may continue the antiandrogen after surgery (at the physician's discretion). * Arm II: Patients undergo total androgen ablation as in arm I. Patients with node-negative dissection undergo radiotherapy 5 days a week for 6.5-7 weeks. All other patients undergo radiotherapy 5 days a week for 5 weeks, followed by boost radiotherapy 5 days a week for 2-2.4 weeks. Hormonal therapy on both arms continues in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. Quality of life is assessed at baseline, on the last day of radiotherapy, at 6 months, and then every 6 months thereafter. Patients are followed at 1, 2, and 6 months and then every 6 months thereafter. PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 1,200 patients will be accrued for this study within 7.5 years.