BACKGROUND: Curative treatment for prostate cancer is associated with risks which may adversely influence quality of life.
Furthermore, there is a considerable rate of overdiagnosis of tumors which would be non-life-threatening if left untreated. Efforts have been made to reduce overtreatment.
DISCUSSION: Beside the traditional conservative symptomatic management especially in elderly patients with meaningful comorbidity, several prostate-sparing or deferred treatment options are currently discussed. For all of them, insufficient data on efficacy and safety are available.
RESULTS: Because of the required long-term follow-up of large sample sizes, conclusive data will not become available in the near future. Therefore, these treatment options have to be considered experimental to a large degree. This applies both to focally ablative techniques and to active surveillance of prostate cancer in patients with a long further life expectancy. Only in carefully selected patients with favorable tumor-associated risk profiles and high risk of medium-term competing mortality may active surveillance be considered a valid and relatively safe treatment option.
Written by:
Fröhner M, Wirth M. Are you the author?
Klinik und Poliklinik für Urologie, Universitätsklinikum "Carl Gustav Carus" der Technischen Universität Dresden, Fetscherstraße 74, 01307, Dresden, Deutschland.
Reference: Urologe A. 2014 Sep;53(9):1295-301.
doi: 10.1007/s00120-014-3526-0
PubMed Abstract
PMID: 25104234
Article in German.
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