Salvage therapy: 1. A final treatment for people who are nonresponsive to or cannot tolerate other available therapies for a particular condition and whose prognosis is often poor.
2. In oncology, a treatment given after a tumor has not responded to other treatments, or any treatment given after recurrence of a tumor.

Salvage therapy is given in the hope of a cure or at least of some more quality time or a better quality existence. Salvage radiotherapy may, for instance, be chemotherapy (salvage chemotherapy) or radiation (salvage radiotherapy).