Stacy Loeb, MD, MSc

Active surveillance is an excellent alternative to surgery or radiation in patients with low-risk cancers. However, the current methods of ascertaining whether a patient harbors a low-risk cancer are flawed.

In this peer-to-peer discussion, Dr. Loeb and Dr. Choyke discuss new developments in active surveillance for prostate cancer.

The optimal treatment for clinically localized prostate cancer is an ongoing subject of controversy.[1] As pointed out by Drs. Mirhadi and Sandler, no randomized trial has compared radical prostatectomy (RP) to radiation therapy (RT), and no study has definitively “proven” the superiority of one technique over the other. Therefore, we disagree with the author’s conclusion that RT “is the ‘only way to go’ when managing early-stage prostate cancer.”