Clinical and pathologic tumor characteristics of prostate cancer as a function of the number of biopsy cores: a retrospective study.

Objectives: Many men with negative prostate biopsies and persistently elevated serum total prostate-specific antigen (tPSA) values will have cancer detected on a repeated biopsy. An important issue is whether the cancer would have been detected on the initial biopsy had more biopsy samples been obtained. The objective of our study was to retrospectively characterize the clinical and pathologic tumor features associated with men who underwent sextant core biopsies compared with men who needed more than six core biopsies during one or more biopsy sessions to detect prostate cancer.

Predicting the pathology results of radical prostatectomy from preoperative information: a validation study.

Background: There are now over 13 published models for predicting the outcomes of radical prostatectomy using preoperative information. Because their ability to predict the pathology of the prostatectomy is key in deciding who benefits the most from this surgery, it is important to know how well these models work for new data.

Methods: The patients in this study were 100 men diagnosed with prostate carcinoma in the prostate specific antigen (PSA)-based screening program at Washington University Medical Center.

Minimal carcinoma in prostate needle biopsy specimens: diagnostic features and radical prostatectomy follow-up.

Prostate cancer screening and early detection efforts have resulted in the identification of smaller volume carcinomas of the prostate. We evaluated the diagnostic features of minimal (< 1 mm) carcinoma in sextant needle biopsy specimens of the prostate and in follow-up analyzed the features of the corresponding carcinomas in the whole gland. We reviewed specimens from 50 consecutive patients who had minimal carcinoma in needle biopsy tissue and who had undergone radical prostatectomy.

Percentage of free serum prostate-specific antigen as a predictor of pathologic features of prostate cancer in a screening population.

Objectives: Measurement of the percentage of free prostate-specific antigen (%FPSA) in serum can improve the specificity of prostate cancer screening. We evaluated the ability of %FPSA to predict pathologic features of screen-detected clinically localized prostate cancer.

Methods: We evaluated the correlation between %FPSA in serum before cancer diagnosis and the pathologic features of the cancers detected in 108 men with clinically localized prostate cancer who were treated with radical prostatectomy and for whom complete embedding of the radical prostatectomy specimen was performed.

A clinical-care pathway for decreasing hospital stay after radical prostatectomy.

Objectives: To evaluate the use of a clinical-care pathway that decreased the stay in hospital after radical retropubic prostatectomy from 3 to 2 days, assessing the costs and quality of care.

Patients And Methods: Forty-four consecutive men who underwent radical retropubic prostatectomy were evaluated prospectively. The first 22 men were hospitalized under the standard 3-day clinical-care pathway in use at our institution.