La cuantificación del volumen tumoral en las biopsias transrectales de próstata

It is widely accepted that the amount of tumour in core biopsies correlates with staging and other clinical parameters of prognostic significance in prostate cancer. A series of 363 radical prostatectomies and their respective previous core biopsies have been reviewed trying to correlate 3 different ways of measuring tumour volume (total millimetres of cancer, number of tumour foci, and percentage of tumour in the biopsy) with extraprostatic disease and other ominous parameters in surgical specimens. Results show that all the three systems correlate with pT category, Gleason index, and perineural invasion in radical specimens. In addition, we found that more than 22 millimetres of cancer in the biopsy predicts extraprostatic invasion in 100% of cases. We conclude that, although the three ways of evaluation the tumour volume work, total millimetres of cancer is the system of choice due to its feasibility and reliability.