Doctors now can see what they're looking for, rather than taking random samples. One prostate needle biopsy is unpleasant enough. But Don Buck has had two of them. He did it because his PSA levels, which can indicate prostate cancer, had shot up dramatically – from 2 to 13. In the traditional procedure, doctors insert a needle into the prostate, take random tissue samples, then send those to the lab to see if there is cancer.
But nothing turned up for Buck. "At that point I was thinking, I’m doing okay," Buck said. "I’m a very healthy guy, the biopsies are coming back negative. I thought, well, perhaps there’s something wrong with the PSA test." Then, his wife convinced him to go to UCLA Medical Center to get another biopsy -- a new type of biopsy that is targeted, not blind, according to UCLA Urologist Leonard Marks.
NBC Video Story: Targeted Prostate Biopsy using MR-Ultrasound Fusion
Video on nbclosangeles.com >
Prostate Biopsy: Targeted Prostate Biopsy MR-Ultrasound Fusion at UCLA
Targeted biopsy is now being used at UCLA to diagnose prostate cancer >
