For some men, there is often the question of whether they should have radiation after prostatectomy for advanced prostate cancer. An evaluation of radiation therapy for men who had undergone prostatectomy for locally advanced prostate cancer showed that adjuvant radiotherapy was associated with better disease-specific survival than salvage radiation therapy.
Adjuvant therapy is typically given soon after primary treatment as a preventive measure, while salvage therapy is delayed until disease recurrence.
An investigative team at Brigham and Women’s Hospital used data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)-Medicare linked database and selected 1,692 men who had undergone radical prostatectomy. Of this group, 772 had adjuvant radiation therapy (administered within six months of prostatectomy) and 920 underwent salvage radiation therapy (given 12 months or longer after surgery).
The results, presented at the 2011 American Urological Association Annual Meeting, showed the disease-specific mortality rate to be 0.29 per 100 person years in the adjuvant group compared with 1.0 per 100 person years in the salvage group. Men in the adjuvant group were less likely to experience bone-related events (14.1%) compared with the salvage group (21.3%), but men in the adjuvant radiation group had a significantly increased use of salvage hormonal therapy compared with the salvage radiation group.
According to the study’s authors, led by Jim C. Hu, MD, MPH, their findings presented the expected outcomes associated with adjuvant and salvage radiation therapy. This information may help men when they are considering treatment options after prostatectomy for advanced prostate cancer.
Read more in our Prostate Cancer Health Center.
Source
American Urological Association Annual Meeting
