Managing localized prostate cancer in a septuagenarian with dementia

As with many cancers, the risk of prostate cancer increases with age. The disease's complexity and its many treatment options add to the conundrum of selecting the proper approach, especially when the patient is an elder with a life-limiting comorbidity such as dementia. To help identify the optimal treatment approach, which should be individualized to each patient, clinicians can use validated clinical guidelines for guidance. The American Urological Association's Guideline for the Management of Clinically Localized Prostate Cancer may be especially useful in the geriatric setting. The authors review these clinical guidelines and provide a case scenario that demonstrates how they were applied in a septuagenarian with dementia.