Comparison of elastic scattering spectroscopy with histology in ex vivo prostate glands: potential application for optically guided biopsy and directed treatment

The false-negative rate of ultrasound-guided sextant prostate biopsy has been estimated to be as high as 35 %. A significant percentage (10–35 %) of these prostate cancers diagnosed at a second or later attempt are high grade and, therefore, potentially lethal. We discuss the feasibility for performing optically guided biopsy using elastic scattering spectroscopy (ESS) to reduce sampling errors and improve sensitivity. ESS measurements were performed on 42 prostate glands ex vivo and correlated with standard histopathological assessment. Sliced glands were examined with wavelength ranges of 330–760 nm. The ESS portable system used a new fiber-optic probe with integrated cutting tool, designed specifically for ex vivo pathology applications. ESS spectra were grouped by diagnosis from standard histopathological procedure and then classified using linear support vector machine. Preliminary data are encouraging. ESS data showed strong spectral trends correlating with the histopathological assignments. The classification results showed a sensitivity of 0.83 and specificity of 0.87 for distinguishing dysplastic prostatic tissue from benign prostatic tissue. Similar results were obtained for distinguishing dysplastic prostatic tissue from prostatitis with a sensitivity and specificity of 0.80 and 0.88, respectively. The negative predictive values obtained with ESS are better than those obtained with transrectal ultrasound (TRUS)-guided core-needle biopsy.