Saturation biopsies on autopsied prostates for detecting and characterizing prostate cancer

OBJECTIVES To evaluate a 36‐core saturation biopsy scheme on autopsied prostate glands to estimate the detection rate based on the true cancer prevalence, and to compare the cancer features on biopsy with whole‐mount pathological analysis, as saturation biopsies have been proposed as a tool to increase the prostate cancer detection rate, and as a staging tool to identify potentially insignificant cancers before surgery. MATERIAL AND METHODS We took 36‐core needle biopsies in 48 autopsied prostates from men who had no history of prostate cancer. The first 18 cores corresponded to an extended biopsy protocol including six cores each in the mid peripheral zone (PZ), lateral PZ and central zone. Six additional cores were then taken in each of these three locations. We compared the histological characteristics of step‐sectioned prostates with the biopsy findings. Tumours were considered clinically insignificant if they were organ‐confined with an index tumour volume of