APPENDIX 5: ABBREVIATIONS & GLOSSARY
GLOSSARY
Active surveillance
An approach to managing potentially curable prostate cancer that entails close follow-up with the objective of avoiding unnecessary treatment. Definitive therapy is offered at a time when disease progression is detected and cure is deemed possible.
Adverse events
Unwanted and usually harmful outcomes (e.g. side effects of treatment).
Androgen
A broad term for any natural or synthetic compound, usually a steroid hormone (e.g. testosterone), that stimulates or controls the development and maintenance of male characteristics.
Androgen deprivation therapy
A form of prostate cancer treatment where drugs are used to reduce the levels of male hormones or blocking the effect of androgens on the growth of cancerous cells in the prostate.
Asymptomatic
Not having symptoms, symptom-free.
Atypical small acinar proliferation (ASAP)
A term used in pathology to describe a collection of small prostatic glands found in a prostate biopsy whose significance is uncertain and cannot be determined to be benign or malignant.
Average risk
A man’s expected risk of developing prostate cancer estimated from the rate of occurrence of prostate cancer in all men in that population. For practical purposes and in this guideline, men are usually assumed to be at average risk of prostate cancer unless they have one or more risk factors for prostate cancer that clearly distinguish their level of risk from that of most other men in the population.
Benefits (of a test or treatment)
The range of desirable effects that have been observed at the population level. In this document, ‘benefits and harms’ indicates potential outcomes, which will not necessarily occur in the case of an individual man.
Biopsy of the prostate
Removal of small pieces of tissue from the prostate, usually using a needle. Tissue samples are taken from different areas of the prostate, and then examined under the microscope to see if they are cancerous.
Chemotherapy
The treatment of cancer using specific systemic chemical agents or drugs that are destructive to malignant cells and tissues.
Consensus-based recommendation
A recommendation based on clinical expertise, expert opinion and available evidence, and formulated using a consensus process, after a systematic review of the evidence found insufficient evidence on which to base a recommendation.
Confidence interval (CI)
A measure that quantifies the uncertainty in measurement. When reported as 95% CI, it is the range of values within which we can be 95% sure that the true value for the whole population lies.
Decision support interventions
Interventions designed to help people make specific and deliberative choices among options (including the status quo) by providing, at a minimum, both information on the options and outcomes relevant to a person’s health status, and implicit methods to clarify values.
Decision aids
A decision aid is an intervention that provides information on clinical options and outcomes relevant to a patient’s health. It is designed to help people make specific choices about different options for their healthcare by providing information on the relevant clinical options and outcomes.
Definitive treatment
Treatment intended to cure.
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