The UK National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) currently recommends that active surveillance is the management strategy of choice for men with localised prostate cancer and a low risk of disease progression; prostate-specific antigen (PSA) <10 ng ml–1 and Gleason score of ⩽6 and clinical stage T1-T2a, the so-called ‘low-risk’ prostate cancer (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, 2008). This evidence concerns the gene KLK3 and prostate carcinoma.