Recently, "watchful waiting" as a potential treatment option for men with newly diagnosed prostate cancer has been gaining more attention from researchers and the press. This option basically entails delaying active treatment (such as surgery or radiation therapy) for prostate cancer while surveillance tests are run on a regular basis to monitor for spread or enlargement of the cancer.
Watchful waiting has been gaining attention because of the fears of physicians and patients that many men with prostate cancer are treated who would never have died from or had serious complications from their cancer. In other words, some men do not really need to be treated for their prostate cancer and would do better over the course of their lives without the side effects of prostate cancer treatment.
Obviously, the difficult part is accurately determining which men have prostate cancer that needs to be treated and which have prostate cancer that can simply be monitored.
Read lots more about watchful waiting for prostate cancer here.
hello doc. ive had surgery 03/18/1994, had 38 rads of radiatiom ,horemoe meds had injection. an had bone scan ,mir, chest ex-ray , can’t find an thing an PSA is at 16.5 now having to had all test again.. have any thing you might add to this list for them to do.. oh all my blood work comes back normal range. Richard