Prostate imaging—the future is now: current concepts and future potentials

Excerpt

Due to its high prevalence, prostate cancer represents worldwide the leading and consequently the most debated oncologic entity within the field of Urology. Traditionally, back in the days ruling in prostate cancer represented more or less the major goal of early detection or screening activities. Conversely, today based on the growing prospectively derived evidence, multiple relevant aspects prior to an individual prostatic biopsy recommendation need to be considered. The main drivers within this ongoing debate are mainly dominated by the keywords: potential “overdiagnosis” and consequential “overtreatment.” In fact, this ongoing debate includes not only a clinical but a health-economical/health-political level, respectively [1‐3]. It is of note that urologic key opinion leaders suggest within a NCCN symposium a new terminology for indolent and precancerous disorders stating that “… prostate cancer is probably the tumor with the greatest risk for overdiagnosis and overtreatment …” as recently published in Lancet Oncology [4]. As a consequence, to improve prostate biopsy indication, technique and treatment strategies, multiple novel diagnostic as well as therapeutic concepts are being developed and promoted. With these notions in mind, the aim of the current WJU issue was to give clinicians an update on these much debated aspects in prostate biopsy by inviting state-of-the-art reviews as well as selecting adequate original articles related to prostate biopsy. …