Radical Prostatectomy for Patients with Prostate-Specific Antigen–Detected Cancer

In 2011's “Year in Review,” we covered the October 2011 first draft of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommendation against prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening for prostate cancer; the final document was published in May 2012 (JW Gen Med Jun 7 2012). However, many patients still will undergo screening and biopsy, and those who receive diagnoses of localized cancer will have to choose between aggressive treatment and observation. Results from the first randomized trial to address this choice for patients with PSA-detected cancer now have been published (JW Gen Med Jul 24 2012).

In PIVOT (Prostate Cancer Intervention versus Observation Trial), 731 U.S. patients with localized, mostly PSA-detected, prostate cancer under…