Prostate cancer doesn’t become more aggressive over time. Low-grade cancer always stays that way and doesn’t become life-threatening, researchers have discovered this week, which supports the ‘watchful-waiting’ approach.
Cancer specialists have assumed that prostate cancer can develop and change, and recommend surgery or radiotherapy if the patient is under the age of 65 or so.
But researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston have discovered that intervention-which can result in impotence or incontinence-is unnecessary if the cancer is identified as low-grade.
In an analysis of cancer tissue taken from more than 1,200 prostate cancer patients between 1982 and 2000, the researchers discovered that the low-grade cancers invariably remained as such. Instead, men diagnosed with a low-grade cancer should adopt a watchful-waiting strategy, where there are regular check-ups but no intervention.
(Source: Cancer research, 2013; 73: 5163).
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