{"id":164505,"date":"2020-09-22T11:43:45","date_gmt":"2020-09-22T15:43:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?post_type=school-college-post&p=164505"},"modified":"2026-02-13T10:02:33","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T15:02:33","slug":"safer-precise-prostate-biopsy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2020\/09\/safer-precise-prostate-biopsy\/","title":{"rendered":"A Safer, More Precise Prostate Biopsy"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s one of those subjects men might find uncomfortable discussing and might not want to spend time thinking about, but how a prostate biopsy is taken can make a big difference.<\/p>\n

\"Dr.
Albertsen Deemed \u2018World Expert\u2019:<\/strong> Dr. Peter Albertsen, chief of UConn Health\u2019s Division of Urology, has been recognized as a \u201cWorld Expert\u201d in prostate cancer by Expertscape, an international online database of medical experts. The site uses an algorithm based on the number and frequency of physicians\u2019 published scientific articles, and determines Albertsen to be in the top 0.013%<\/a> of more than 155,000 published authors worldwide in the category of \u201cprostatic neoplasms\u201d over the last 10 years. (Photo by Tina Encarnacion)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Traditionally, a urologist or ultrasonography technician would take a tissue sample of the prostate through the rectum, known as a transrectal biopsy. At UConn Health, biopsies are done exclusively by urologists who use what\u2019s known as a transperineal approach. Rather than piercing through the contaminated rectal wall, they access the prostate through sterilized skin behind the scrotum.<\/p>\n

When Drs. Peter Albertsen<\/a> and Ben Ristau<\/a> started doing transperineal biopsies in early 2019, they suspected this approach would greatly reduce the risk of an infection that can lead to hospitalization for sepsis, which generally occurs in up to 4% of men who undergo a transrectal biopsy.<\/p>\n

Now, nearly 200 procedures in, \u201cWe still have not had our first infection, and we\u2019ve used no antibiotics,\u201d says Albertsen, UConn Health\u2019s chief urologist.<\/p>\n

Transperineal biopsy is becoming more commonplace in Europe and is the standard of care in Australian hospitals, but it\u2019s yet to take hold widely in the U.S. UConn Health is one of a small number of locations in the Northeast that offers it. And as patients become more educated about this approach, they\u2019re willing to travel to have it done.<\/p>\n

One such patient is Stephen, 63, who lives in southern New Hampshire. He is an educated professional who did his research on what would be his first prostate biopsy, and he did not like what he was reading about the transrectal approach. So he started looking for places that offered the transperineal approach.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no one in New Hampshire, or northern Massachusetts,\u201d Stephen says. \u201cI did find someone in Boston who did it, but he told me he rations that procedure and I don\u2019t qualify.\u201d<\/p>\n

‘I was going to have the best, lowest-risk biopsy I could get. And that\u2019s what I got.’<\/p>\n

\u2014Stephen, 63, New Hampshire<\/h4>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He was making plans to travel to Philadelphia to have it done.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen my wife discovered Dr. Albertsen and UConn Health,\u201d he says. \u201cI read an article in the UConn newsletter about how he does transperineal prostate biopsies<\/a>, and thought, \u2018This is what I want. We\u2019re going here.'”<\/p>\n

\u201cI read up on Dr. Albertsen and thought, \u2018We\u2019ve hit a home run here, let\u2019s go.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Ten days after his initial consultation, Stephen returned to have the biopsy done at UConn Health, which is a two-and-a-half-hour drive from his home.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe nurses were great, the anesthesiologist was great,\u201d he recalls. \u201cI woke up with no pain and got dressed. I had only minor soreness, which was hardly noticeable.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was on a Friday. His wife drove him home that afternoon and the following morning he was taking his regular three-mile morning walk.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went back to work that Monday, and by Tuesday there was no soreness at all,\u201d Stephen says.<\/p>\n

The sepsis-free streak aside, Albertsen and Ristau have observed other benefits to this new approach to prostate biopsy.<\/p>\n

\"Dr.
Dr. Ben Ristau is UConn Health’s surgical director of urologic oncology. (Photo by Tina Encarnacion)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI think one of the things I have come to appreciate is how much of a better job we are doing sampling the prostate,\u201d Albertsen says. \u201cWe can much more precisely sample areas in the apical region of the prostate than we could using the transrectal probe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI completely agree, I would never go back to transrectal,\u201d says Ristau, UConn Health\u2019s surgical director of urologic oncology. \u201cThrough the transrectal approach, it was routine to give preventive antibiotics in order to reduce the risk of infection. The problem with antibiotic overuse is that it has the potential of creating \u2018superbugs,\u2019 essentially antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Using the transperineal approach, we\u2019ve omitted antibiotics entirely because we don\u2019t have to go through the contaminated rectum to do the biopsy. We can simply sterilize the skin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Patients go under sedation for the biopsy, similar to how they would for a colonoscopy. The procedure lasts about a half-hour, and patients go home the same day.<\/p>\n

As for Stephen, his biggest concerns never came to be.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the world of Dr. Albertsen,\u201d he says. \u201cI avoided the tremendous risk that the transrectal biopsy posed \u2013 all of these risks that a lot of urologists are not up front about.”<\/p>\n

\u201cI was going to have the best, lowest-risk biopsy I could get. And that\u2019s what I got.\u201d<\/p>\n

September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month. Learn more about the UConn Health Division of Urology.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After nearly two years of using a biopsy method known as the transperineal approach, UConn Health urologists report higher-quality prostate samples and zero infections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":164426,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2193,2194,1868],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2010],"class_list":["post-164505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hartford-county","category-new-haven-county","category-meds"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-03 18:10:57","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164505"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164505\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":241202,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164505\/revisions\/241202"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/164426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164505"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=164505"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=164505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}