Hormone Therapy and Radiation Therapy in Treating Patients With Prostate Cancer

OBJECTIVES: * Compare the efficacy of moderate-duration (28 weeks) neoadjuvant total androgen suppression (TAS) and radiotherapy (RT) with short-duration (8 weeks) neoadjuvant TAS and RT, as related to disease-specific survival, in patients with intermediate-risk adenocarcinoma of the prostate. * Compare these regimens, in terms of overall survival, disease-free survival, time to local tumor progression or distant failure, time to first biochemical failure, hormone-refractory state, and treatment-induced morbidity, in this patient population. OUTLINE: This is a randomized, multicenter study. Patients are stratified according to prostate-specific antigen level (no greater than 10 ng/mL vs greater than 10 but no greater than 20 ng/mL vs greater than 20 ng/mL), tumor stage (T1b-2 vs T3-4), Gleason score (2-4 vs 5-6 vs 7-10), and prior hormonal therapy (yes vs no). Patients are randomized to one of two treatment arms. * Arm I: Patients receive total androgen suppression for 8 weeks prior to the initiation of radiotherapy and throughout radiotherapy. A luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone (LHRH) agonist is administered every 1-3 months AND bicalutamide OR flutamide is given orally daily for a total duration of 16 weeks. Beginning with week 9, patients undergo radiotherapy 5 days a week for 8 weeks. * Arm II: Patients receive total androgen suppression for 28 weeks prior to the initiation of radiotherapy and throughout radiotherapy. An LHRH agonist AND bicalutamide OR flutamide are administered as in arm I for a total duration of 36 weeks. Beginning with week 29, patients undergo radiotherapy as in arm I. Patients are followed every 3 months for 1 year, every 6 months for 4 years, and then annually thereafter. PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 1,540 patients (770 per treatment arm) will be accrued for this study within 4 years.