Dr. Emberton on the Importance of Multidisciplinary Care in Prostate Cancer

Mark Emberton, MD, FRCS, professor, Interventional Oncology, Division of Surgery and Interventional Science, University College London, clinical director, Clinical Effectiveness Unit, Royal College of Surgeons of England, discusses the importance of a multidisciplinary approach to the treatment of patients with localized prostate cancer.

Emberton says that bringing in a mixed set of skills to a task results in benefit. Radiologists and pathologists, in addition to the urologist, are needed in order to get the risk stratification right, he explains. Approaching a patient’s treatment with a multidisciplinary team allows for greater success and innovation. Moving forward, these relationships are only going to expand.

Detection rates are now reaching 80%, whereas historically, they have been anywhere from 25% to 30%. This statistic, Emberton says, shows how inefficient the system was before. Recently, engineers and computational biologists have been added into the mix, as molecular medicine with biomarkers is becoming increasingly important. Synthesizing this mass of information, such as complex imaging data sets with biomarker data sets, is going to be the challenge for the next 10 years, Emberton adds.