Adjuvant versus salvage radiotherapy following radical prostatectomy: do the AUA/ASTRO guidelines have all the answers?

Debate continues surrounding the indications for adjuvant and salvage radiotherapy as the published randomized trials have only addressed adjuvant treatment. Salvage radiotherapy has been advocated to limit significant toxicity to patients that would not have benefited from immediate adjuvant radiotherapy. The American Urological Association and American Society for Radiation Oncology guideline released in 2013 has since recommended offering adjuvant therapy to all patients with any adverse features and salvage to those with prostate-specific antigen or local recurrence. The suggested criteria is limited in its application as it potentially subjects patients with few adverse features to adjuvant therapy despite not qualifying as high risk according to established postoperative predictive tools such as the Kattan nomogram. This article reviews the indications for postoperative radiotherapy, limitations of the guideline and alternative prognostication tools for clinicians faced with biochemical or locally recurrent post-prostatectomy prostate cancer.