- 3 updates
'Surveillance' to be offered in some prostate cancer cases
Some men with prostate cancer should be offered 'surveillance' rather than treatment, according to new guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. The new guidance would only affect men at 'low' and 'intermediate' risk.
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Guidance calls for 'regular check-ups' for some men
Professor Mark Baker, director of Nice's Centre for Clinical Practice, says that the "surveillance" protocol for men with slow-growing prostate cancer would involve "regular check-ups" instead of "radical treatment".
Prostate cancer is most common type in men
- Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men
- It accounts for more than a quarter of all male cancer diagnoses in the UK
- It is predominantly a disease of older men (aged 65–79 years)
- There is a higher incidence of and mortality from prostate cancer in men of black African-Caribbean descent
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'Surveillance' may be offered in prostate cancer cases
Some men with prostate cancer should be offered "surveillance" rather than treatment, according to new guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice).
Doctors treating sufferers deemed to have "intermediate" or "low" risk prostate cancer should consider offering monitoring rather than radical surgery or radiotherapy, the guidance says.
According to Nice, prostate cancer can be "slow growing" and many men will have cancer that will not cause them any harm in their lifetime.
Meanwhile treatment options, including surgery and radiotherapy, can have "serious side effects", such as erectile dysfunction and fertility and continence problems.