What is active surveillance / watchful waiting?
Active surveillance (also known as “watchful waiting”) is the decision not to treat the prostate cancer at the time of diagnosis. Rather than treat the cancer, the physician monitors the PSA value at various intervals to assess whether it is increasing and at what rate (the PSA velocity). Ideally, the patient and the physician identify a point at which therapy would be instituted and the patient is monitored without therapy until he changes his mind or that point is reached. Active surveillance is ideally suited for patients with potentially life-threatening medical conditions and older patients with low Gleason scores. In these individuals, it is less likely that prostate cancer will be the cause of their death. Younger men, healthy men, and those with a higher Gleason score are more likely to live long enough to have symptoms and disease progression in their lifetime and are better suited to more definitive treatment if the cancer is identified early at a low stage.
