Table of Contents

Chapter 2: Initial Treatment: Weighing the Pros and Cons of Each Option

There are three very different types of initial treatments for localized prostate cancer—active surveillance, surgery, and radiation therapy. Surgery and radiation therapy have both shown positive outcomes as front-line treatment. Either form of treatment can result in "cure" (defined as being disease-free for five years) in over 90% of men with localized prostate cancer.

Do you need to begin treatment right now or are you a candidate for active surveillance? As we’ll discuss in this Chapter, each of the different options requires a careful understanding not only of prostate cancer, but also of the way that you want to approach treatment. Your first step in deciding how to proceed must be to understand what each of the options actually accomplishes.