Pathologists Pay Heed! New Spectroscopy Technique May Make Prostate Biopsy Obsolete
Mass General researchers use metabolomic imaging to accurately diagnose tumors
Pathology laboratories may soon find it possible to identify prostate cancer without a biopsy. A new technology under development at Massachusetts General Hospital demonstrates the potential to improve the accuracy of prostate cancer diagnosis. Some studies have demonstrated that nearly a quarter of initial biopsies of the prostate gland may generate false-negative results because the biopsy specimen failed to extract cells from existing cancerous tumors.
To improve the detection of prostate cancer, researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) are investigating a new technique that may give doctors a way to locate even small tumors and to provide an accurate determination of a prostate tumor’s prognosis without using a biopsy.
