This coming Friday, April 22, at 11:00 am Eastern / 8 am Pacific, there will be an important new educational opportunity for the prostate cancer patient and patient advocacy community: Your Voice in the Future of Active Surveillance, coordinated by Active Surveillance Patients International (ASPI) and AnCan and and supported by many other prostate cancer patient advocacy groups. To register, please click here.
More than 50 percent of all patients currently being diagnosed with prostate cancer are now understood to be appropriate for initial management on active surveillance, without immediate invasive treatments such as surgery or radiation therapy. A significant percentage of those men may never, ever need invasive treatment at all.
Optimizing the accuracy of the diagnosis of such men — and then ensuring high quality monitoring over time (while minimizing the need for unnecessary biopsies) has become a priority for many in the prostate cancer research community who will be participating as speakers and discussants in this informational program. And the patient community has a huge potential role to play in moving these initiatives forward.
Your voice may be critical in moving these initiatives forward over the next three to five years.
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THE "NEW" PROSTATE CANCER INFOLINK 
It’s so rational and logical to suggest active surveillance is a reasonable choice for many prostate cancer patients. But there is an emotion to having cancer, not to mention spouses who “Just want to get rid of the cancer.”
I just got my PSA results that was 5.27, I am a 63 year-old white male with a prostate the size of an Orange I am told by my urologist from a cystoscopy. Before these results today they had suggested laser surgery. Now with these results not for sure? I have asked for an appointment with my family physician to discuss all of the blood work. Obviously I have not spoken to my urologist yet or my physician yet not till the 23rd Monday and today being the 19th but is there any good solid advice?
Dear Michael:
If you have a prostate “the size of an orange”, there is a high probability that your PSA is elevated because of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) and NOT prostate cancer. You would be wise to have other tests that can help to differentiate between these two conditions. Such tests include as so-called “free PSA test” or a “prostate health index” (phi) test. Whether your family physician would be comfortable ordering one of these tests or whether you would need to go back to the urologist to get one of these tests is something you will need to discuss with the doctors.