The Prostate Cancer Quandary

The Wall Street Journal

Scientists may soon be able to answer the agonizing question facing men with prostate cancer: Does their cancer need immediate treatment or can it be left alone?

Some 218,000 American men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer this year. An estimated 85% of those tumors will grow so slowly that they will never cause problems. But the rest are aggressive and lethal. As of now, there's no way to tell early on which cancers are which, so tens of thousands of men undergo surgery or radiation each year for cancers that never needed treatment, risking impotence or incontinence in the process… read more