Delaying prostate surgery may not be risky

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

Patients with low-grade prostate cancer can safely wait for some time before taking the surgery option.
There are various options open to men who have prostate cancer - surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy or 'watchful waiting'. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have been looking at the outcome for men who delayed having surgery, opting for ongoing monitoring. They investigated a group of 320 men who had low grade prostate cancer diagnosed early by prostate specific antigen (PSA) screening.

In such cases, there is often a risk of over-treatment but, understandably, some men want to have the tumor removed as soon as possible. In this group, 38 men delayed surgery for two years or more. They were compared to a group of 150 men who had surgery after about three months. The results showed that the risk of invasive cancer was about the same in both groups. In other words, delaying surgery in early stage cancer may be a sensible and safe option.

Source
Journal of the National Cancer Institute 1st March 2006

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