Dr. Johnstone on Immediate Salvage Therapy for Prostate Cancer

Peter A. Johnstone, MD, vice chair, Department of Radiation Oncology, Moffitt Cancer Center, discusses immediate salvage therapy for patients with prostate cancer and the most common physician questions surrounding the treatment.

Oncologists are able to gain a deeper understanding of a patient's individual prostate cancer, including the disease stage, once the prostate is surgically removed, Johnstone explains. Additionally, pathological characteristics of the disease, such as extra capsularly extension, involvement of the seminal vesicles, and presence of positive margins and/or perineural invasion are known at this point.

Because of this, practitioners are able to better determine which patients should receive postoperative radiation therapy (RT). The challenge oncologists then face is how to integrate the postoperative RT for those patients and when it should be administered.