Value of Additional Systematic Cores During Magnetic Resonance Imaging–guided Targeted Biopsy in Prostate Cancer Screening for Young Men: Results from the PROBASE Trial

We looked at the effectiveness of systematic biopsy (usually 12 cores taken from the prostate gland) and targeted biopsy (cores from a suspicious area seen on a scan) of the prostate among men aged 45-54 years as part of a prostate cancer screening trial. The results show that using only two targeted cores per lesion seen on an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scan may miss a significant number of clinically relevant prostate cancers. One reason could be that MRI-targeted biopsies are not always perfectly accurate. To improve diagnostic accuracy in younger men, it may be necessary to take additional systematic tissue samples, or at least more samples from around any suspicious area. This trial is registered on ISRCTN as ISRCTN37591328.