The prostatic cancer is the most common form of neoplasm affecting the human being. Some data shows that up to 2 out of 10 men will suffer from prostate cancer. Besides, as many as 10% of men in their 40s harbour prostatic lesions that are early cancer tumours.
The best mean by which a PCa can be diagnosed is the serum determination of PSA (prostatic specific antigen) through vein puncture. PSA is an organ-specific rather than cancer-specific marker, so it can raise seccondary to infections, benign prostatic hyperplasia and other. On the other hand, there is evidence pointing that 40% of high PSAs -undergoing prostate biopsy do not harbor prostate cancer- yet are at risk of the side effects of the prostate biopsy (mainly prostatitis with a 1-2% of admission in ICU).
The MRI technology could help us find which cases of high PSA have a suspictious lesion in the prostate that might be malignant. Although prostatic MRI is a rather new techonology, some risk scale imaging systems have been validated, such as PIRADS.
PIRADS classification stages the risk that a particular prostatic lesions is malignant, ranging from 1 (very low risk) to 5 (very high risk). Generaly speaking, PIRADS lesions 3 or above should be biopsied, although than depends on other cryteria such as age, PSA velocity, number of previous biopsies.
