Some risk seen with prostate biopsy

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Among men who have undergone a prostate biopsy, there is a small increase in death rates within the following 120 days, researchers report.

They caution, however, that further studies are needed to verify this association, and to figure out what might be causing it.

The finding stems from a study of 22,175 men who underwent prostate biopsy from 1989 to 2000, who were compared with a "control" group of 1778 similar men who did not have a biopsy.

Overall, 1.3 percent of the biopsy group died during the 120 days after the procedures, while only 0.3 percent of the control group died within a similar period, Dr. Pierre I. Karakiewicz, from the University of Montreal, and colleagues report in the International Journal of Cancer.

Age and other factors affected the odds of dying. For example, men younger than 61 years had a mortality rate of 0.2 percent, compared with 2.5 percent for men over 75 years. Among men with multiple medical conditions, the mortality rate was 2.2 percent, but it was only 0.7 percent for otherwise healthy men.

The findings suggest that older and less healthy men should be carefully prescreened to make sure the benefits of a prostate biopsy outweigh the risks, the researchers advise.

SOPURCE: International Journal of Cancer, August 1, 2008.