American Cancer Society Issues Prostate Cancer Survivor Guidelines

The American Cancer Society issued guidelines on how prostate cancer should be followed once treatment has been provided with the bulk of the responsibility falling on primary care providers. There are 240,000 new prostate cancer diagnoses in United States each year. Most of these malignancies are localized or regional disease in older men with five year survivals approaching 100%. The guidelines are quite simple. Prostate cancer survivors should have a PSA measured every six months for the first five years after treatment. After five years an annual PSA level is considered sufficient. If the PSA is increasing a referral should be made to a specialist either a urologist skilled in treatment of prostate cancer or an oncologist. An annual digital examination should be part of the regimen of all survivors of prostate carcinoma. These new guidelines are consistent with recommendations made by the Institute of Medicine and the National Comprehensive Cancer Network.

As treatment of cancer becomes more successful we can expect to see more guidelines on how to medically screen and follow survivors. The recommendation that the responsibility fall on the shoulders of primary care physicians comes at a time when the nation faces a shortage of future primary care physicians. At the same time that recommendations call for PSA evaluation every six months for the first five years in prostate carcinoma survivors, there are no recommendations to screen healthy males for prostate cancer with PSA measurements. That is a separate and distinct controversial issue.