It may be more effective to treat post-surgery prostate cancer patients with radiation therapy before the cancer recurs, according to new guidelines issued by industry experts.

The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) and the American Urological Association (AUA) have jointly issued a guideline on radiation therapy for prostate cancer patients that reviews 324 research articles.

The guideline will appear in the August issues of the Red Journal, the official scientific journal of ASTRO, and The Journal of Urology, the official journal of the AUA.

The two most popular treatment methods for prostate cancer are surgery and radiation. However, patients that undergo surgery may still need additional radiation therapy afterwards.

"There's evidence now [that] radiation therapy is now considered a standard of care for patients who undergo surgery and were at high-risk for disease recurrence but who do not have any documented evidence of treatment failure," said Dr. Richard Valicenti, professor and chair of the department of radiation oncology at the University of California Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center in Sacramento.

These recommendations attempt to settle a controversy over a question on the benefits of post-surgery radiation.

Some experts caution doctors to wait until the post-surgery patient has disease recurrence, while experts on the other side of the debate recommend administering radiation therapy before the disease even has a chance to come back.

But now, significant trial results show that effectiveness of radiation therapy for cancer recurrence is greatest when given at the lowest levels of cancer.

The guideline also includes a recommendation to inform patients of this finding to help them make an informed decision about their treatment.

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