Prostate Cancer

Mr.

Masraff wasn't giving up.

Instead he opted for "watchful waiting," a little-understood option for men with There's increasing evidence that watchful waiting is a safe option for 30 percent to 50 percent of men with newly diagnosed Several cancer centers are now conducting research to determine which patients are the best candidates for watchful waiting.

Last week University of Texas M.D.

Anderson Cancer Center announced a watchful-waiting study of 650 men that will also try to find molecular markers to help better predict risk.

This summer a multinational trial called START, supported in part by the U.S.

and Canadian National Cancer Institutes, will start recruiting 2,100 men to evaluate watchful waiting compared with other treatments.

To be sure, But in many men, the disease is slow-growing with little chance of ever causing problems.

"A lot of patients harbor these small areas" of cancer that don't pose a threat, says Laurence Klotz, professor of surgery at the University of Toronto and principle investigator on...

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