In the UK every year 40,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer and the life-time risk of being diagnosed with this is 15% at the present time but may well increase with the greater use of the PSA blood test. An increasing proportion (almost half) of men now diagnosed with localized prostate cancer have cancer that we believe can be safely monitored provided the fine details regarding the grade, location and stage of the cancer are known.
By using all of the bits of information at our disposal we can with greater confidence recommend for some men safe monitoring or focal destruction of cancer rather than put them through anything major such as radiotherapy or surgery