Prostate biopsies, a thing of the past?

That's okay Dan in the first instance but without a biopsy how would they ever know a) what type of prostate cancer it is and b) the Gleason score? My guess is that men with positive scans would still more often than not have a biopsy - just thinking of the valuable time that would be wasted giving a man traditional treatments such as HT if he has small cell or mucinous PCA for example. Presumably, if the scan showed a very small area of tumour, more men would feel confident about AS but otherwise, I can only see a benefit in that fewer unnecessary biopsies would be done.

Of course Lyn, the 40C temperatures in Bangkok must be getting to me :-) but thanks for digging me out Chris.

Edited by member 09 May 2016 at 14:52  | Reason: Not specified

Hi Guys,

I think the doctors and scientists have something of a race against time?

On the one hand they clearly need something better than the TRUS at actually identifying cancer. 

Simultaneously the increasing risk of infection from antibiotic resistant infections means that the TRUS process may ultimately become too risky. 

In May 2014 a Swedish study found that the risk of hospitalisation following the TRUS biopsy was by 2011 twice as high as it had been in 2006. This was attributed to increasing resistance of Enterobacteriaceae species, a common cause of UTI in Sweden and elsewhere.

See article ‘Severe Infections After Prostate Biopsy on the Rise’ http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/830452

There have even been instances of men dying from the TRUS see

https://www.webmedcentral.com/article_view/3757

So all in all, those of us who have already had a TRUS biopsy, should perhaps consider ourselves lucky?

:)

Dave