Prostatic diseases under focus in a university hospital in Eastern Saudi Arabia

OBJECTIVES To explore the spectrum of pathologies diagnosed in prostatic biopsies of Saudi men, and test whether the frequency of diagnosing the malignant fraction has been changed over the last 15 years, and assess the association between chronic inflammation (CI) with both benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) and cancer (PCa), and investigate the histological findings of cases presented with acute urinary retention (AUR) clinically. METHODS This is a retrospective cohort study including all prostatic biopsies accessed in the files in the Surgical Pathology Laboratory of King Fahd University Hospital, Alkhobar, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia over 15 years (1999-2013) for Saudi men. Age, procedure indication, and final diagnoses were retrieved and slides were reviewed. RESULTS There were 360 cases included in this study with a median age of 65 year-old. The BPH comprised the most (64.7%), while PCa accounted for 89 cases, 13.5% of which were incidental. Most cases of both BPH and PCa were diagnosed in the seventh decade. The frequency of diagnosing PCa did not show a solid rise or fall over time. Chronic inflammation is more related to BPH than to PCa. Only CI showed a significant statistical association with AUR. CONCLUSION Prostatic diseases show a stable trend over time. While CI is a common dominator for both BPH and PCa, it is associated more with BPH. Among all histological findings, only CI is related to the clinical presentation of AUR.