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Prostate cancer

Reducing overtreatment: active surveillance in low-risk disease

Nature Reviews Urology volume 8, pages 124–125 (2011)Cite this article

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Prostate cancer screening often detects indolent cancers—defined as those which would never cause morbidity or mortality if left undetected and untreated. Unnecessary treatment of indolent cancer is a problem associated with this 'overdetection'. Active surveillance is a management strategy for low-risk cancers which can decrease the overtreatment burden.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Urology, Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California San Francisco, 1600 Divisadero Street, San Francisco, 94115, CA, USA

    Jared M. Whitson, Sima P. Porten & Peter R. Carroll

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  1. Jared M. Whitson
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  2. Sima P. Porten
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  3. Peter R. Carroll
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Correspondence to Jared M. Whitson.

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Competing interests

P. R. Carroll declares that he acts as a consultant for Steba Biotech and Myriad Pharmaceuticals, has received Speaker's Bureau honararia from Takeda Pharmaceuticals and receives grant support from Abbott Laboratories. The other authors declare no competing interests.

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Whitson, J., Porten, S. & Carroll, P. Reducing overtreatment: active surveillance in low-risk disease. Nat Rev Urol 8, 124–125 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrurol.2011.8

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