Individual research recommendation details

Recommendation ID

NG131/3

Question

What is the most clinically and cost-effective pathway for diagnosing clinically significant prostate cancer?

Any explanatory notes
(if applicable)

Why the committee made the recommendations

The committee saw no new evidence to suggest that any changes were needed to the recommendations on imaging in people who are not going to have radical treatment.

There was good evidence that showed that multiparametric MRI is useful in identifying lesions before biopsy, and the combination of MRI with prostate biopsy leads to better identification of clinically significant prostate cancer than systematic prostate biopsy alone. The committee recommended using a 5‑point Likert scale because this scale takes into account clinical factors and not just the lesion size, improving the diagnostic ability of multiparametric MRI.

The committee made a recommendation to consider omitting prostate biopsy for people whose multiparametric MRI Likert score is 1 or 2 because there was some evidence that this is safe to do. However, there is a small risk that in some cases significant cancers may be missed, so the committee recommended clinicians discuss the risk and benefits with the person.

Based on their expertise and economic evidence, the committee recommended not offering mapping transperineal template biopsy as an initial biopsy, because the technique is currently too resource intensive to be used as an initial assessment – it requires general anaesthetic and extensive histological analysis. The committee recognised that this technique could be allowed as part of a clinical trial because it is often used as the benchmark or gold standard test in those trials. The committee did not see any evidence that allowed them to clearly differentiate between transperineal (non-mapping) and transrectal biopsy, so it agreed to refer to 'prostate biopsy' throughout the recommendations.

As there was limited evidence on the most effective pathway for excluding clinically significant progression of prostate cancer in people with low to intermediate risk, the committee made a research recommendation on this topic. They also identified that there was a gap in the evidence on the most suitable surveillance protocol in this population group.

How the recommendations might affect practice

The recommendations should not have a significant resource impact as many centres already perform MRI-influenced biopsy. Since all people who have a biopsy will previously have had an MRI, using the MRI to target the biopsy will be more efficient and need less biopsy cores to be taken. Health economic evidence shows that MRI-influenced prostate biopsy may be more cost effective than systematic prostate biopsy as it takes less time and is more efficient in identifying clinically significant cancer.

Full details of the evidence and the committee's discussion are in evidence review D: diagnosing and identifying clinically significant prostate cancer.

Source guidance details

Comes from guidance

Prostate cancer: diagnosis and management

Number

NG131

Date issued

May 2019

Other details