Active surveillance for localized prostate cancer

The widespread application of PSA screening has led to an important increase of the small and well-differentiated prostate cancer. Despite natural history of prostate cancer has not been completely elucidated; it has been proved that the evolution of low grade tumours was favorable and that some of them remain indolent. In these cases, curative therapies and their associated morbities might be considered as overtreatment. Active surveillance should be an option to limit this overtreatment. It is obvious that the initial risk stratification used for active surveillance wasn't enough restrictive. From now on, it seems that a PSA<10 ng/ml, a Gleason score<7 and more than 10 prostate biopsies are the good criteria to propose for the selection of eligible patients. However, the debate about adequate and accurate criteria is still ongoing between several teams worldwide involved in active surveillance. International prospective studies are in progress and are necessary to establish selections criteria and modalities of surveillance and predictors of active treatment. We need to wait for conclusion from prospective studies results. However, it appears that active surveillance offers yet the possibility to delay active treatment and its complications in selected cases. © 2010 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.