Background: Adverse pathology (AP) at radical prostatectomy (RP) is often used as a proxy for long-term prostate cancer outcomes. The goal of this study was to assess the association of AP at RP, defined as high-grade (> Grade Group 3) and/or non-organ confined disease (pT3), with distant metastasis and prostate cancer death. Methods: A stratified cohort sample of 428 patients was used to evaluate the association of adverse pathology with the risk of distant metastases and prostate cancer-specific mortality over 20 years after prostatectomy in 2641 patients treated between 1987-2004. Cox regression of cause-specific hazards was used to estimate the absolute risk of both endpoints, with death from other causes treated as a competing risk. Subgroup analysis in patients with low/intermediate risk disease potentially eligible for active surveillance was performed. Results: Among the 428 patients, 343 had AUA Low or Intermediate risk disease and 85 had High risk disease. Median follow-up time was 15.5 years (IQR 14.6–16.6 years). Using the cohort sampling weights for estimation, at RP 29.8% of patients had high-grade disease, 42.3 % had non-organ confined disease, 19.3% had both, and thus 52.8% had AP. Adverse pathology was highly associated with metastasis and prostate cancer mortality in the overall cohort (HR 12.30, 95% CI 5.30-28.55, and 10.03, 95% CI 3.42-29.47, respectively, both p<0.001), and in the low/intermediate risk subgroup potentially eligible for active surveillance (HR 10.48, 95% CI 4.18-26.28, and 8.60, 95% CI 2.40-30.84, respectively, both p≤0.001). Conclusions: Adverse pathology at radical prostatectomy is highly associated with future development of metastasis and prostate cancer mortality and may be used as a short-term predictor of outcomes.

^aAbsolute risk treating death due to non-prostate-cancer causes as a competing risk. AP=adverse pathology; CI = confidence interval