End 'drastic' cancer surgery call

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The National Institute for health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) said in future men diagnosed with low-grade cancer should not automatically receive radical surgery or radiotherapy.

Instead, they should be offered "active surveillance" - regular monitoring - until their illness shows signs of becoming threatening.

Although prostate cancer kills 10,000 men in the UK each year, it is not always immediately dangerous.

Many non-aggressive cancers are slow growing and may have no effect on a patient for 15 years or more.

Since the disease is mainly diagnosed in older men, these patients often reach the end of their normal lives without being bothered by their disease.

On the other hand, radical treatments such as removal of the prostate gland or radiotherapy can have serious life-long side effects, including impotence and urinary incontinence.

There have been concerns that too many men with prostate cancer are needlessly being put under the surgeon's knife or subjected to high doses of radiation.

The new Nice guidelines for the first time advocate an "active surveillance" policy to be universally adopted in England and Wales for men with low-risk, localised prostate cancer.

Under active surveillance, no immediate action is taken to treat the patient who instead is regularly tested for PSA (prostate specific antigen) in his blood - the standard measurement tool for prostate cancer.