Radiation therapy after surgery for men with
prostate cancer lessens the chance of the
cancer coming back, regardless of whether the radiation was administered immediately after surgery or after the cancer recurred, according to a new study in the June 2004 issue of the International
Journal of Radiation Oncology*Biology*Physics, the official journal of
ASTRO, the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology.
Many studies recently have shown that radiation after surgery reduces that chances that the prostate cancer will recur. For prostate cancer, there are two main types of postoperative radiation therapy – adjuvant and salvage. Adjuvant is administered after the primary treatment (in this case, surgery) has been completed and it appears the cancer cells have been killed. Salvage is administered if prostate cancer has started to come back and the physician is trying to save the patient by treating the disease with radiation therapy. In this study, the researchers wanted to see which type of postoperative radiation therapy was best for men with prostate cancer.
Between 1989 and 1997, 69 patients were referred for adjuvant radiation therapy and 88 patients with evidence of a recurrence were treated with salvage radiation therapy. The men in the salvage group received radiation, on average, 40 months after surgery while the patients in the adjuvant group were treated with radiation an average of three months post surgery. According to the study, salvage radiation therapy was significantly less effective when the patient’s PSA level rose over 1.