New protocol for active surveillance of men with early prostate cancer

Prostate cancer is among the most common cancers in men, making up more than a quarter of diagnoses and accounting four seven per cent of cancer deaths in the UK. Among the updated recommendations, is a new protocol for active surveillance. This is a way of monitoring slow-growing prostate cancers that might never progress or cause any symptoms, and can help avoid or delay treatment such as radiotherapy or surgery which might otherwise be unnecessary.
NICE recommends that doctors should offer active surveillance for men with low-risk localised prostate cancer for whom radical prostatectomy or radical radiotherapy is suitable.
The protocol recommends measuring PSA levels every 3-4 months in the first year of surveillance, and then at increasing intervals if there is no evidence of disease progression.