There are still some controversies surrounding the early detection of prostate cancer. If prostate cancer is suspected, then a patient is scheduled for a biopsy. In case of a negative result, the urologist should advise the patient of the need for a rebiopsy or perhaps for watchful waiting. If cancer is finally found, then the problematic questions are whether it is actually an organ-confined disease or the patient is hiding extraprostatic disease? A treatment plan must also be devised. Will the patient receive radical curative or palliative treatment? One thing for certain is that the patient would benefit from early decision planning before a decision is made.22
For the first time, we have the power of a tool that is equally available and easily accessible to any urologist. This promising tool uses up-to-date data and demonstrates a flexibility in learning that should provide proper outcomes. The availability of these data to every patient is a key issue to health care systems, because the construction and use of electronic medical records comes with many advantages such as easy accessibility and back-up technology.
Currently, we should consider the ANN to be an important tool for consultation that should never replace our personal knowledge and judgment. By doing so, it becomes complementary to our decision making. The ANN must be used as a unique tool to test each patient’s risk assessment in order to give the patient the highest level of predictive accuracy. This important prognostic tool could produce radical changes in the way we make decisions because it provides an easy way for the patient and the doctor to understand medical facts. It could also lead to improvement in the accuracy of our diagnostic tools, and by reporting the effects of selective treatment options, it may also affect our treatment decisions.