Doctors have stressed for years it’s vital to treat all cancers early to increase the chance of cure. But one rogue malignancy rarely obeys the rules. Now, a report in the Canadian Medical Association Journal says, “active surveillance” is increasingly used to treat prostate cancer. The big question is how many patients want to wait when told they have a malignancy?
But why is this currently a choice? Autopsies show that 50% of men over age 59 have prostate cancer, and three in four over 85. One in seven North Americans will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime, yet only one in every 28 men will die of it. Obviously, not all need to be treated.
