Negative Biopsy
Biopsies detect prostate cancer in about 25% of men with abnormal screening tests. However a negative biopsy does not ensure the absence of disease. Repeat prostate biopsies are positive in about 25-30% of patients whose initial biopsy was negative.
During a biopsy procedure, less than 1 percent of the entire prostate gland is sampled, so men can harbor prostate cancer in spite of having a negative initial biopsy.
Recently in order to address this problem, researchers have examined the ability of mitochondrial DNA to help diagnose prostate cancer in negative biopsy samples.
Read more about this topic: Prostate Biopsy
Famous quotes containing the word negative:
“Coming out, all the way out, is offered more and more as the political solution to our oppression. The argument goes that, if people could see just how many of us there are, some in very important places, the negative stereotype would vanish overnight. ...It is far more realistic to suppose that, if the tenth of the population that is gay became visible tomorrow, the panic of the majority of people would inspire repressive legislation of a sort that would shock even the pessimists among us.”
—Jane Rule (b. 1931)