Measuring the Length of Needle Core Biopsies and the Amount of Prostate Cancer Present

Parameters:

(1) total number of cores from the left lobe of the prostate

(2) total number of cores from the right lobe of the prostate

(3) total length for all of the cores from the left lobe in mm

(4) total length for all of the cores from the right lobe in mm

(5) total length for all the foci of tumor in the left lobe in mm

(6) total length for all of the foci of tumor in the right lobe in mm

From these measurements several percentages can be derived:

(1) number of cores with a certain percentage of tumor

(2) total tumor length as a percent of total core biopsies taken

Theoretically the key measure is volume of tumor identified but these calculations would be too laborious to be practical.

It is important to keep the left and right lobes separate since bilateral disease affects the TNM classification if the tumor is organ confined.