Does transrectal ultrasound guided eight-core prostate biopsy improve cancer detection rates in patients with prostate-specific antigen levels of 4.1-10 ng/mL?

Background: To investigate retrospectively whether the eight-core biopsy method improves the prostate cancer detection rate when compared with the standard sextant biopsy method in patients with prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels of 4.1-10 ng/mL.

Material And Methods: Of 437 patients whose PSA levels ranged from 4.1 to 10 ng/mL, 237 underwent a transrectal ultrasound guided sextant biopsy (sextant group), and 200 underwent an eight-core biopsy (eight-core group). Eight core samples were obtained from each of the far lateral regions in addition to the standard sextant biopsy cores. None of the patients had a previous history of prostate biopsy.

Results: Of the 237 patients in the sextant group, prostate cancer was detected in 47 patients (19.8%) and in 50 of the 200 patients in the eight- core group (25.0%). The rates of detection in the two methods were not statistically significant. However, in patients whose PSA density was less than 0.1 ng/mL per cc, the cancer detection rates in the sextant group and the eight-core group were 4.5% and 18.8%, respectively (P = 0.046). The morbidity and complications of the eight-core biopsy method were not notable.

Conclusions: Only in patients with PSA levels of 4.1-10 ng/mL and density of less than 0.1 ng/mL per cc was the eight-core biopsy method an improvement on the sextant biopsy method in terms of prostate cancer detection rate. Accordingly, a number of cores greater than eight will be required to improve the cancer detection rates in patients with PSA levels of 4.1-10 ng/mL and PSA densities of more than 0.1 ng/mL per cc.