TRANSRECTAL ULTRASONOGRAPHY TO ASSESS LOCAL EXTENT OF PROSTATIC-CANCER BEFORE RADICAL PROSTATECTOMY

Objective To evaluate transrectal ultrasonography (TRUS) with a 7 mHz rotating probe as a staging procedure in 33 patients with localized pr ostatic carcinoma. Patients and methods The ultrasound scans were comp ared to histopathological whole-mount step sections of the surgical sp ecimens. Twenty-five of the patients had tumours with pathological sta ge T3 (pT3) and eight had tumours with stage pT2 giving a prevalence o f extracapsular growth of 0.76. Results The overall sensitivity, speci ficity, positive and negative predictive values for detection of extra capsular tumour growth by TRUS of prostatic cancer were found to be 0. 68, 0.63, 0.85 and 0.38, respectively. Six tumours showed solely micro scopic foci of extracapsular tumour growth. Conclusion This technique gives a high percentage of both understaging (32%) and overstaging (37 %) and therefore TRUS is an unreliable tool in the staging protocol pr ior to radical prostatectomy.