A patient’s wife once told urology surgeon Peter Pinto, MD, that there was no way she’d agree to have a dozen biopsy needles stuck blindly into her breast just because a blood test suggested she might have cancer.
But that’s exactly what happens with many men whose cancer screening test reveals an elevated level of prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, in their blood. Although mammography provides images of suspicious breast lesions to guide biopsy needles, prostate cancer is the only type of solid organ tumor that is usually diagnosed sight unseen with hit-or-miss tissue biopsies.