By Joyce Kryszak
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Buffalo, NY – The National Comprehensive Cancer network released new guidelines last week for a more relaxed approach to prostate cancer treatment and screening. The Roswell Park Cancer Institute developed the top screening tool - the PSA test. But the Institute supports the changes.
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The 23-member group of leading urologists is recommending what it calls "active surveillance" for many men diagnosed with prostate cancer. That means taking a watch and see approach. No treatment is recommended if the treatment wouldn't help the patient live any longer.
Screening protocols also were scaled back for low-risk men. Dr. James Mohler heads the department of urology at Roswell Park and chairs the NCCN. He said the guidelines make sense - even to proponents of PSA testing.
The new guidelines are based on two studies released last year that showed greater harm to men from too much testing and too much treatment. The studies also showed that men did not live any longer who get the PSA test.
Mohler disagrees with that last assumption. He said the study would have to run another 12 years to know whether or not the men in the study lived any longer than those not tested. Still, Mohler said he can be objective about how best to use the diagnostic tool.
The guidelines say men at low-risk do not need the test until age 40. If the results are good, they can wait until age 45 and then age 50 to be tested again. But Mohler said the patient and his doctor are the best ones to decide when to test - and if diagnosed if and how to be treated.
More information is available at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute web site.