A Prospective Study Comparing Cancer Detection Rates of Transperineal Prostate Biopsies Performed by Junior Urologists versus a Senior Consultant in a Real-World Setting

Abstract

<b><i>Introduction:</i></b> Prostate biopsy (PB) is a typical daily practice method for the diagnosis of prostate cancer (PCa). This study aimed to compare the PCa detection rates and peri- and postoperative complications of PB among 3 residents and a consultant. <b><i>Patients and Methods:</i></b> A total of 343 patients who underwent PB between August 2018 and July 2019 were involved in this study. Residents were systematically trained for 2 weeks by a consultant for performing systematic biopsy (SB) and targeted biopsy (TB). And then, 3 residents and the consultant performed PB independently every quarter due to routine rotation in daily practice. The peri- and postoperative data were collected from a prospectively maintained database (www.pc-follow.cn). The primary outcome and secondary outcome were to compare the PCa detection rates and complications between the residents and consultant, respectively. <b><i>Results:</i></b> There was no significant difference between the residents and consultant in terms of overall PCa detection rates of SB and TB or further stratified by prostate-specific antigen value and prostate imaging reporting and data system (PI-RADS) scores. We found the consultant had more TB cores (175 cores vs. 86–114 cores, <i>p</i> = 0.043) and shorter procedural time (mean 16 min vs. 19.7–20.1 min, <i>p</i> &#x3c; 0.001) versus the residents. The complication rate for the consultant was 6.7% and 5%–8.2% for the residents, respectively (<i>p</i> = 0.875). <b><i>Conclusions:</i></b> The residents could get similar PCa detection and complication rates compared with that of the consultant after a 2-week training. However, the residents still need more cases to shorten the time of the biopsy procedure.