January 23, 2017.
According to a British study published in the journal The Lancet, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) will very soon make it possible to establish a more precise diagnosis than a biopsy.
1 in 4 men could avoid a biopsy
Less invasive than a biopsy, MRI may soon become the best way to diagnose prostate cancer. This is in any case what reveals a study published in the journal The Lancet. According to this work, Multiparametric MRI (MP) would indeed allow 1 in 4 men to avoid a biopsy. It would also be, in certain cases, more useful and more precise than the biopsy.
To reach this conclusion, the researchers followed more than 550 men suspected of having prostate cancer. These patients underwent an MRI-MP, followed by two biopsies. The first was to assess whether the conclusions of the PM-MRI examination were correct. The second was a standard biopsy. They were thus able to observe that MRI-MP had diagnosed 93% of prostate cancer, while the classic biopsy was only effective in 48% of cases.
Current biopsy is not always accurate
The ” current biopsy may be inaccurate because tissue samples are taken at random », Explains Hashim Ahmed, lead author of the study. Furthermore, ” she is not always able to determine whether the tumor is aggressive or not », Adds the researcher. “ Hence diagnostic errors. ” Multiparametric MRI should therefore be used before the biopsy to identify harmless cancers., explain the authors of the study.
” We still operate too much in France », Denounces Abdel-Rahmène Azzouzi, head of the urology department at the University Hospital of Angers, in the columns of Sunday Newspaper. ” The main risk of prostate cancer is not death but overtreatment. ” Gold, in the event of a misdiagnosis after a biopsy, a patient who might never have developed cancer may have the prostate removed or chemotherapy treatment.
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