The Active Surveillance Study

"Active surveillance (AS) is an accepted management strategy for men diagnosed with low risk PrCa, generally defined as PSA \<10ng/ml and Gleason score of ≤6 and clinical stage T1 to T2a. Occasionally, a minority of men with Gleason 3+4 disease are included, though majority of those included in AS studies have Gleason 3+3 disease or less.~Men in AS studies have repeated biopsies based on various criteria including PSA velocity, repeat biopsy at set time points and change noted on digital rectal examination (DRE), biopsy or MRI imaging. Progression of disease has been defined in various ways in different studies, generally, using criteria of Gleason upgrade to greater than Gleason 3+3, evidence of Gleason 4 or Gleason 5 disease, \>50% involvement of any one biopsy core, and greater than 2 cores positive on repeat biopsy. Percentages of men on AS who have upgrade on repeat biopsy have been found to be 19-34%; this may differ in our cohort of men with increased genetic risk for PrCa."