Impact of Real-Time Elastography versus Systematic Prostate Biopsy Method on Cancer Detection Rate in Men with a Serum Prostate-Specific Antigen between 2.5 and 10 ng/mL

The actual gold standard for the diagnosis of prostate cancer includes the serum prostate-specific antigen, the digital rectal examination, and the ultrasound-guided systematic prostate biopsy sampling. In the last years, the real-time elastography has been introduced as an imaging technique to increase the detection rate of prostate cancer and simultaneously reduce the number of biopsies sampled for a single patient. Here, we evaluated a consecutive series of 102 patients with negative digital-rectal examination and transrectal ultrasound, and prostate-specific antigen value ranging between 2.5 ng/mL and 10 ng/mL, in order to assess the impact of real-time elastography versus the systematic biopsy on the detection of prostate cancer. We found that only 1 out of 102 patients resulted true positive for prostate cancer when analysed with real-time elastography. In the other 6 cases, real-time elastography evidenced areas positive for prostate cancer, although additional neoplastic foci were found using systematic biopsy sampling in areas evidenced by real-time elastography as negative. Although additional studies are necessary for evaluating the effectiveness of this imaging technique, the present study indicates that the limited accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity do not justify the routine application of real-time elastography in prostate cancer detection.