What is a Prostate Cancer Biopsy?

Dr. Dan Spratt explains what a prostate cancer biopsy is and how prostate cancer biopsies are performed.

The Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF) is the world’s leading philanthropic organization dedicated to funding life-saving cancer research. Founded in 1993 by Mike Milken, PCF has raised more than $800 million in support of cutting-edge research by more than 2,200 research projects at 220 leading cancer centers in 22 countries around the world. Thanks in part to PCF’s commitment to ending death and suffering from prostate cancer, the death rate is down more than 50% and countless more men are alive today as a result. PCF research now impacts more than 70 forms of human cancer by focusing on immunotherapy, the microbiome, and food as medicine.

[GogsGagnon]

I've had two transrectal prostate biopsies. The first was random and negative. Four years later, due to continued rising PSA, a second prostate biopsy, this time, MRI targeted, was positive. I could have done without the first random biopsy, and my cancer may have been found four years earlier. It turns out my cancer was out of reach of the DRE and was in the final stage before breaching the prostate. And yet, I had no symptoms. Men need to strongly consider including both the PSA test and the DRE as part of their annual physicals.