Comparison of Pain Levels in Fusion Prostate Biopsy and Standard TRUS-Guided Biopsy

Objectives: Fusion prostate biopsy (FPB) has recently emerged as a popular and successful biopsy technique on diagnosis of prostate cancer. The aim of this study was to compare the pain levels in TRUS-guided standard 12-core prostate biopsy (SPB) and MpMRI-guided FPB.

Materials And Methods: Patients detected with a PI-RADS (Prostate Imaging Reporting and Data System) ≥3 lesion on MpMRI underwent MpMRI-guided FPB (Group I) and the patients who had no suspected lesions or had a PI-RADS<3 lesion on MpMRI underwent TRUS-guided SPB (Group II). Pain assessment was performed using Visual Analog Scale (VAS) five minutes after the procedure. Following the procedure, the patients were asked to indicate the most painful biopsy step among the three steps.

Results: 252 patients were included in this study (Group I=159, Group II=93). The mean number of cores and the malignancy detection rate were significantly higher in Group I compared to Group II (p<0.001, p=0.043, respectively). No significant difference was found between the two groups with regard to VAS scores (p=0.070). The most painful part of the whole procedure was revealed to be the insertion of the probe into the rectum. However, no significant difference was found between the two groups with regard to the most painful biopsy step (p=0.140).

Conclusion: FPB, with a relatively higher cancer detection rate, leads to the same pain level as SPB although it increases the number of biopsy cores and involves a more complex procedure compared to SPB. Further prospective studies with larger patient series are needed to substantiate our findings.