Dr. Stadler on Active Surveillance in Prostate Cancer

Walter M. Stadler, MD, Fred C. Buffett Professor of Medicine and Surgery, dean for clinical research, director of the Genitourinary Oncology Program, and deputy director of the Comprehensive Cancer Center, at the University of Chicago Medicine, discusses the use of active surveillance in prostate cancer.

Active surveillance plays an important role in prostate cancer, specifically in patients who are diagnosed with low-grade localized prostate cancer, says Stadler. Many of those patients are able to live their lives without experiencing any impact from the disease. Active surveillance is an appropriate management strategy in this setting, he adds.

Active surveillance can also be useful to patients who may have received local therapy and then experience biochemical progression of their disease with slow doubling times of their PET prostate-specific antigen, says Stadler; these are doubling times on the order of 2 years or more. Many of those patients, especially if they're elderly or have comorbidities, may not require any intervention. As such, active surveillance may also be appropriate in these patients.