Precise preoperative localization of prostate cancer employing 12-core needle biopsy with a tissue-marking method for effective surgical strategy

Prostate needle biopsy plays a pivotal role not only in the diagnosis but also the management of patients with prostate cancer. Prostate cancer is often multifocal and diagnosis of the lesion could therefore be difficult with diagnostic imaging only; thus, multiple core biopsies are taken from several different regions of the prostate. In current practice, 10-or 12-core needle biopsy is considered the clinical standard. Several techniques have been reported to improve the orientation of the specimens, but tissue marking, which could theoretically provide important information on the location of the lesion in the prostate, has been rarely reported. Therefore, in this study, we evaluated the clinical significance of systematic 12-core needle biopsy with tissue marking for preoperative prediction of lesion sites and clinicopathological features of patients. We evaluated 93 patients who underwent 12-core prostate biopsy and subsequent radical prostatectomy. We correlated the biopsy results to the prostate sites in which biopsies were performed and prognostic factors of the patients, especially the degree of extraprostatic extension (EPE) obtained in surgical specimens. Among 253 cancer foci detected in 93 prostatectomy specimens, 168 (66.4%) foci were detected by biopsy. All patients had proven cancer. EPE-positive cancers were associated with a larger number of positive cores, larger tumor length, and higher percentage of cancer tissue in the corresponding cores. Systematic 12-core prostate biopsy with tissue marking is useful for preoperative detection of cancer foci and provides valuable information that enables effective surgical strategies.