In the era before the widespread adoption of PSA screening for prostate cancer, most incident cases were already advanced stage.
Because treatment options such as surgery or radiation are thought mainly to benefit patients with localized disease, prostate cancer imaging was necessary prior to treatment of almost all patients. In the PSA era, however, over 90% of incident cases are localized, making the need for routine imaging with CT, MRI, or bone scan obsolete [1]. Numerous studies show a relatively low rate of positive staging imaging in low- and intermediate- risk patients. Recognizing these trends, several professional societies issued prostate cancer imaging guidelines in the mid-1990s in an effort to curb the overuse of imaging. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Written by:
Wollin DA, Makarov DV. Are you the author?
NYU Langone Medical Center.
Reference: BJU Int. 2015 Feb 26. Epub ahead of print.
doi: 10.1111/bju.13104
PubMed Abstract
PMID: 25715887