Video: Should We Call Gleason 6 Prostate Cancer? | 2019 PCRI Conference Excerpt from Laurence Klotz, MD

2019 PCRI Conference | Transcription

Dr. Moyad: Alright, next slide. 

So, I'm gonna tell you about this. So, there are all these papers now to change the name of cancer.

Dr. Klotz: Yeah. 

Dr. Moyad: Okay, right. Overdiagnosing thyroid cancer, overdiagnosing all these cancers, and a bunch of experts—I don't know what your stance or saying—well the problem is we're calling Gleason 6 and we're calling these papillary thyroids, we're calling them cancer. Let's change the name and make it more benevolent so it won't freak people out. Do you have any comment to the audience on whether or not we're gonna change the name of Gleason 6 and what's happening?

Dr. Klotz: So, it's really been driven by expediency because if we didn't call it cancer we, you know, wouldn't have the burden of explaining to patients using the word which scares people and so on. The problem is it comes from the pathologist. So the pathologists write down on the report, "this is cancer," and pathologically it's cancer. In other words, I used to hold the view that you just expressed and I actually debated the leading pathologist in prostate cancer probably in the world is Jonathan Epstein, you know, Epstein Criteria. And he convinced me, basically, because the pathologist sees microscopic invasion that's a hallmark of cancer. With the other examples, there's a bladder tumor called punlmp where exactly the word cancer used to be ascribed to it, isn't anymore, it isn't analogous because punlmps never show this microscopic invasion. So, other cancers, you know, I mentioned this a little bit, are similar to Gleason 6 prostate cancer. There's no debate about changing basal cell carcinoma to something else. So, I, although I see the value of it, I don't think it's going to succeed. The move to change the terminology.