New Guidelines for Prostate Cancer Survivorship Care

The American Cancer Society has released new Prostate Cancer Survivorship Care guidelines that outline post treatment clinical follow-up care for the myriad of long-term and late effects.

The guidelines, published early online in the Society's journal, CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, are designed to promote optimal health and quality of life for the post treatment prostate cancer survivor by facilitating the delivery of comprehensive post treatment care by primary care clinicians.

“We are hopeful that the hard work that went into the development of these much-needed guidelines will pay off in improved care for the approximately 240,000 men diagnosed with prostate cancer every year,” Rebecca Cowens-Alvarado, MPH, principal investigator for the National Cancer Survivorship Resource Center, director of Cancer Control Mission Strategy at the American Cancer Society and coauthor of the report said in a statement. “The adoption of these guidelines will be a critical step forward to improve the delivery of prostate cancer survivorship care.”

While guidelines exist for treatment and surveillance for recurrent disease, availability of guidelines for long-term post treatment care is limited. The new guidelines address health promotion, surveillance for recurrence and screening for second primary cancers, and the assessment and management of physical and psychosocial long-term and late effects resulting from prostate cancer and its treatment.

A key challenge in the development of the guidelines was the limited availability of published evidence informing the clinical management of prostate cancer survivors after treatment.

The guidelines can be found here.