A new core‐biopsy instrument with an end‐cut technique provides prostate biopsies with increased tissue yield

Abstract

Objective To evaluate the tissue yield of a new core-biopsy needle with an end-cut mechanism when used for transrectal prostate biopsies. Patients and methods The end-cut instrument has an adjustable stroke length (13, 23 or 33 mm) and an inner and an outer cannula, but no trocar. It was compared with the conventional side-notch needle (Biopty, Bard, Covington, GA, USA) with trocar and fixed stroke length (22 mm). In 60 men, octant biopsies were taken including the apex, mid-medial, mid-lateral and basal positions. At random, the left side of the prostate was biopsied with one of the instruments and the right side with the other. The length and weight of the biopsy specimens were measured. In 40 men, the stroke length of the end-cut instrument was set to 23 mm, and in 20 men it was set to 33 mm.Results The weight and the weight per length of the biopsies provided by the end-cut instrument with a stroke length of 23 mm were 18.4% and 13.7%, respectively, greater than in the biopsies from the side-notch instrument (P<0.001). In 21.9% of the attempts no tissue was obtained by the end-cut needle, compared with 1.9% with the side-notch needle. With a 33 mm stroke length, the length and weight of the end-cut biopsies were 38.4% and 33.0%, respectively, greater than in biopsies from the side-notch instrument. Conclusion The end-cut instrument provided a greater tissue yield than the side-notch needle, but a significant number of biopsies were lost.

Sixteen gauge needles improve specimen quality but not cancer detection rate in transrectal ultrasound-guided 10-core prostate biopsies

“…Sampling devices with different cutting techniques and core lengths have been studied. [12][13][14][15] Moreover, a preliminary ex vivo study evaluated the comparison of cancer detection rates of 16 and 18 g biopsy needles on radical prostatectomy specimens, 9 but as far as we know, there are no prospective randomized studies in the literature that evaluate the performance of biopsy needles with calibres larger than 18 g. It has been reported that long-core needles with end-cutting technique do not improve cancer detection, 12 and their effects on tissue quality are controversial. Ozen et al 12 and Patel et al 13 reported higher glandular coverage and better specimen quality with more abundant prostatic tissue obtained and less fragmentation, whereas Baltaci et al 14 found higher small biopsy (o5 mm) and similar fragmentation rates when compared to standard 18 g needles.…”

“…Although some studies are present about needles with different core lengths and sampling techniques such as endcutting versus side-cutting needles, there are no studies in the literature comparing 18 g needles to needles with larger calibres regarding cancer detection rates together with specimen quality. [12][13][14][15] Using 16 g needles may help increase specimen quality by acquiring more undistorted prostatic tissue per core, which in turn may facilitate better pathological examination.…”

The impact of core biopsy fragmentation in prostate cancer

“…Histological quality of the biopsy specimens have been previously considered in a few studies [7][8][9][10]. All these studies focused on the improvement of prostate sampling and cancer detection rates.…”

Usefulness of cutting needle biopsy in recurrent and advanced staged head and neck malignancies in a palliative setting

“…CNB has proved to be a successful and reliable technique for obtaining specimens for histologic examinations and has been used outside the head and neck for many years [1,4,6,7,9,13,15,16,25,33]. However, cutting needle biopsy procedures have found little attention for the diagnosis of unclear lesions within the head and neck region, although there are several advantages of automatic cutting needle biopsies compared with aspiration cytology and open surgical biopsies.…”