PSA screening has resulted in improved prostate cancer survival, but the high rate of diagnosis and treatment side effects raise concerns about overtreatment. In the quest to prevent overtreatment, “active surveillance” has emerged as a plausible option, encouraged for men whose tumors may not need immediate treatment and may never progress to more serious illness. Appropriate criteria for selecting patients for active surveillance are continuously debated. A group of investigators from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York report that adding endorectal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to the initial clinical evaluation of men with clinically low prostate cancer risk helps assess eligibility for active surveillance. Their results are published in The Journal of Urology.
