Publication: Journal of Clinical Urology
Vincent J Gnanapragasam, Kelly Leonard, Michal Sut, Cristian Ilie, Jonathan Ord, Jacques Roux, Maria Consuelo Hart Prieto, Anne Warren, Priya Tamer
June 2020
Prostate cancer is the commonest male cancer and more than one million rectal biopsies for suspected prostate cancer are carried out each year. However, a significant number of men undergoing rectal biopsies develop infection and sepsis.
This study showed that the CamPROBE, a device developed by Cambridge researchers that can be used under local anaesthetic, is just as good at diagnosing prostate cancer as rectal biopsies – with less infection risk.
Led by Cambridge University Hospitals (CUH), the study recruited 40 patients across six sites. CUH developed a user training course and disseminated the method to the other sites, which then offered the Cambridge Prostate Biopsy Device (CamPROBE), as an alternative to transrectal ultrasound guided biopsy to men due for a biopsy as part of their clinical management.
There were no infections, device deficiencies or safety issues reported, and the CamPROBE appears non-inferior in terms of cancer detection rates. The study also showed that the procedure is well tolerated by patients, suited to the local anaesthetic outpatient setting and can be readily disseminated and adopted.
Future clinical investigation trials will aim at confirming the veracity of the findings, develop head-to-head comparisons with other biopsy methods and explore comparative health economic and cost benefit analysis.
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