Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2003 May;56(5):336-40.
doi: 10.1136/jcp.56.5.336.

Guidelines for processing and reporting of prostatic needle biopsies

Th H van der Kwast  1 , C Lopes, C Santonja, C-G Pihl, I Neetens, P Martikainen, S Di Lollo, L Bubendorf, R F Hoedemaeker; Members of the pathology committee of the European Randomised Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer
Affiliations
Review

Guidelines for processing and reporting of prostatic needle biopsies

Th H van der Kwast et al. J Clin Pathol. 2003 May.

Abstract

The reported detection rate of prostate cancer, lesions suspicious for cancer, and prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia (PIN) in needle biopsies is highly variable. In part, technical factors, including the quality of the biopsies, the tissue processing, and histopathological reporting, may account for these differences. It has been thought that standardisation of tissue processing might reduce the observed variations in detection rate. Consensus among the members of the pathology committee of the European Randomised study of Screening for Prostate Cancer (ERSPC) concerning the optimal methodology of tissue embedding resulting in guidelines for prostatic needle biopsy processing was reached. The adoption of an unequivocal and uniform way of reporting lesions encountered in prostatic needle biopsies is considered helpful for decision taking by the clinician. The definition of parameters for quality control of prostatic needle biopsy diagnostics will further facilitate clinical epidemiological multicentre studies of prostate cancer.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The relation between the cumulative length of sextant biopsies and the detection rate of prostate cancer in men who underwent sextant needle biopsy. Each letter in the figure represents a separate centre participating in the ERSPC
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Mettlin C, Murphy GP, Babaian RJ, et al. The results of a five-year early prostate cancer detection intervention. Investigators of the American Cancer Society national prostate cancer detection project. Cancer 1996;77:150–9. - PubMed
    1. Hoedemaeker RF, Rietbergen JB, Kranse R, et al. Histopathological prostate cancer characteristics at radical prostatectomy after population based screening. J Urol 2000;164:411–15. - PubMed
    1. Epstein JI. The diagnosis and reporting of adenocarcinoma of the prostate in core needle biopsy specimens. Cancer 1996;78:350–6. - PubMed
    1. Iczkowski KA, Bassler TJ, Schwob VS, et al. Diagnosis of “suspicious for malignancy” in prostate biopsies: predictive value for cancer. Urology 1998;51:749–57. - PubMed
    1. Lane RB, Jr, Lane CG, Mangold KA, et al. Needle biopsies of the prostate: what constitutes adequate histologic sampling? Arch Pathol Lab Med 1998;122:833–5. - PubMed