Objectives: To evaluate the clinical utility of transrectal power Doppler imaging (PDI) of the prostate for detecting prostate cancer in patients with abnormally high serum levels of prostate specific antigen (PSA).
Patients and methods: Patients (107) with abnormally high serum PSA levels were assessed using a digital rectal examination (DRE), transrectal ultrasonography (TRUS) and PDI. Any hypervascular lesion on PDI was graded on a scale of 0-3, where grade 1-3 was considered positive and grade 0 negative. Patients were then diagnosed by prostatic needle biopsy and the results compared with the other detection methods.
Results: Needle biopsy confirmed prostate cancer in 41 (24%) of the 170 patients. PDI was positive in 68, of whom 40 (59%) had prostate cancer; all those but one having prostate cancer were positive on PDI. Thus, PDI had a high sensitivity of 98% (40/41) and a negative predictive value of 99% (101/102). PDI could have saved a significant number of patients from undergoing unnecessary biopsies, compared with DRE and TRUS (P < 0.001).
Conclusion: The use of PDI in detecting prostate cancer might reduce the number of unnecessary needle biopsies of the prostate in patients with abnormally high serum PSA levels.