Conservative Treatment of Localised Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer has long been an enigma to the practising urologist. Forty years ago Franks reported, whilst attributing the original observations to Rich (1935), that the disease had apparently increased in frequency since 1900, but was a comparatively rare cause of death (1.4% of all deaths in men over 50) despite being commonly identified in autopsy specimens. He considered that at least 30% of men over 50 years had such latent or quiescent cancer (Franks 1956). Franks noted the American experience at that time to be similar to his own; later workers (Scott et al. 1969) found disease at autopsy in 57% of men over 80 years.