Prostate Cancer Hot Sheet Newsletter

[ng27868168]

One article in particular caught my eye concerning a touchy subject in my opinion, and that is the Active Surveillance (AS) issue. The title of this article was "Active Surveillance Is Often Not". Without posting the entire article, it starts out like this; "Only 0ne in three men with supposedly low-risk prostate cancer receive appropriate follow-up when assigned to active surveillance (AS)". The article goes on to say that because of this new thinking regarding the increased choice of AS by men (because it is the simplest) there has been a rise in treatment of PC which has become more of a problem because of lack of monitoring.

The American Urological Assoc. (AUA) guidelines for AS are: PSA testing every 6 months and a repeat biopsy every 2 years.

[JoelT]

I am wondering about that statement, "because it is the simplest."

Joel

[ng27868168 in reply to JoelT]

JoelT..., thanks for your question. I guess when I used the word "simplest", it really wasn't what I meant. In my experience as a facilitator of our PC Support Group we occasionally get new men showing up at a meeting who after recently been diagnosed with higher than normal PSA or a biopsy that shows only a bit of cancer, tend to take the approach to just " wait and see what happens" after hearing about the possible negative changes like ED, incontinence, hot flashes, etc. associated with doing something like surgery, radiation, seeds, or hormone treatment.

So to me, when I hear that "doing nothing until"..., may be the "simplest" choice, but could be the worst choice. More than a few times I have heard the sad statement: "if I would have known then what I know now, I would have had some form of treatment." Sadly but understandedly, we hear this too often from younger men who don't wish to lose their sexual ability, but eventually do anyway with greater consequences.