Improved prostate biopsy guidance using ultrasonic tissue-typing images

Prostate cancer is diagnosed using needle biopsies guided by conventional ultrasonic images. However, conventional ultrasound has inadequate sensitivity and specificity to direct biopsies into suspicious regions reliably. Consequently, many cancers are missed, and benign tissue is unnecessarily sampled so that the incidence of negative biopsies is excessive. Tissue-typing images based on spectrum analysis of radio-frequency ultrasonic echo signals are showing improved sensitivity for prostate and may provide a superior means of guiding biopsies. Comparisons of the efficacy of spectral-parameters and conventional imaging for distinguishing cancerous from non-cancerous prostate tissue result in an ROC-curve area of 79% for spectrum analysis and 60% for conventional imaging