Is The Prostate Cancer Biopsy An Effective Diagnostic Tool?

Though there are several tests that may be carried out if the presence of prostate cancer is suspected, the one certain way to diagnose the condition is the prostate cancer biopsy. But just how efficient is the biopsy when it comes to diagnosing this particular disease?

In the United States alone each year there are approximately 1,000,000 prostate cancer biopsies performed of which approximately 25 percent show the presence of cancer. Of the remaining 75 percent of biopsies however roughly 33 percent produce false negative results. This means that roughly a quarter of all men being given prostate biopsies are cleared by this test, notwithstanding the fact that they are suffering from prostate cancer.

On the surface therefore it could seem that the cancer biopsy is not a very good test but the results do not show that there is anything wrong with the biopsy as a tool for confirming the presence of cancer. However, what is does show is the need to spot those individuals who, although returning a negative result, are nevertheless at considerable risk from cancer and should therefore have a follow-up biopsy.

The difficulty is that until now there has been no easy way of identifying those patients at risk. However, a recent study of over 500 patients being investigated for the possible presence of prostate cancer may now provide an answer.

All of the men taking part in the study had already received a negative biopsy result but researchers discovered that when they looked at the men's prostate specific antigen (PSA) test results and adjusted these for the size of the prostate they could identify those individuals who were likely to show positive results on a second biopsy.

The researchers also discovered that men with a Gleeson score of 7 or above were at greater risk from life-threatening cancer and were once again more likely to receive a positive result from a second biopsy. The Gleeson score runs on a scale between 2 and 10 and the score is calculated from a microscopic investigation of biopsy tissue. Low scores indicate cancer with a low risk of spread and high scores indicate cancer that is much more likely to spread.

There are several biopsy procedures available now although perhaps the most frequently performed procedure is known as the core needle biopsy. Here a number of tiny tissue samples are removed from different parts of the prostrate with a biopsy gun that shoots a needle into the chosen area to remove the sample in a fraction of a second. The samples collected are then sent for laboratory examination to ascertain whether or not cancer is present and, if so, to determine just how much of the prostate is affected.

A prostate cancer biopsy is a costly procedure and is one that can be reasonably worrying for the subject. It is sometimes also a quite painful procedure that may involve bleeding and the risk of infection. As a consequence it is important to detect those patients for whom a second biopsy is desirable and to reduce the number of unnecessary follow-up biopsies being performed each year.

ProstateProblemCenter.com provides information on everything from the prostate cancer biopsy procedure to the therapeutic use of prostate massage