Value of addition of six months of androgen deprivation therapy to postoperative radiotherapy for prostate cancer

The value of addition of androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) to postoperative radiotherapy (PORT) after radical prostatectomy for prostate cancer is not clear. In the multinational randomized RADICALS-HD trial, patients after radical prostatectomy received 6 months of ADT plus PORT or PORT alone. The primary outcome measure was metastasis-free survival. For this endpoint no significant difference between the groups was seen, as was also the case for the endpoints overall survival and freedom from distant metastasis. Toxicity of grade 3 or higher was reported for 17% of patients in the no ADT group and 14% of the patients in the PORT plus ADT group (p=0.15), with no treatment-related deaths. The authors conclude that adding 6 months of ADT to PORT after prostatectomy for prostate cancer was not associated with improvement of metastasis-free survival.