How prostate cancer care can be personalized every step of the way

In a recent publication from Philips, Henk van Houten explains the need and ability for prostate cancer, the second most common cancer among men worldwide, treatment to be optimized and individualized. 

  Editor's Note: This publication originally appeared on Philip's website.  

Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer among men worldwide, after lung cancer [1]. Unfortunately, diagnosis and therapy selection are not always simple or straightforward. 

Many prostate cancers are indolent and unlikely to pose a life threat. This means that for a large proportion of patients, active surveillance may be a better option compared to active treatment, which can have debilitating side effects such as impotence or incontinence. Yet it is crucial to discriminate indolent prostate cancers from the more aggressive ones. Once prostate cancer has spread to distant parts of the body, survival rates drop to 30% [2].

This poses a difficult dilemma: should you avoid any risk of cancer progression and start treating immediately, at the expense of serious side effects? Or should you rather “watch and wait”, allowing the patient to enjoy a better quality of life as long as active treatment is not needed? There is a considerable risk of either overtreating or undertreating the patient. Continue reading>>

 

 

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