Radiation Therapy With or Without Goserelin in Treating Patients Who Have Undergone Surgery for Recurrent or Refractory Prostate Cancer

OBJECTIVES: Primary * Compare the efficacy of adjuvant radiotherapy with vs without concurrent goserelin, in terms of biological and/or clinical progression-free survival, in patients who have undergone surgery for recurrent or refractory prostate cancer. Secondary * Compare overall survival of patients treated with these regimens. * Compare metastases-free survival of patients treated with these regimens. * Compare the immediate and delayed toxicities of these regimens. * Compare the delay in reaching the prostate-specific antigen nadir in patients treated with these regimens. * Compare the quality of life at 1 and 5 years after radiotherapy in these patients. * Compare the functional dependence at 1 and 5 years after radiotherapy in patients age 75 years and over. OUTLINE: This is an open-label, randomized, parallel-group, multicenter study. Patients are randomized to 1 of 2 treatment arms. * Arm I: Patients undergo radiotherapy once daily, 5 days a week, for 7 weeks. * Arm II: Patients undergo radiotherapy as in arm I. Patients also receive goserelin subcutaneously on day 1 and again 3 months later. Quality of life is assessed periodically. After completion of study therapy, patients are followed periodically for 10 years. PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 466 patients will be accrued for this study.