Can pain during digital rectal examination help us to decide the necessity and the method of anesthesia for transrectal ultrasound guided prostate needle biopsy

OBJECTIVE: Transrectal ultrasound (TRUS) guided prostate biopsy is well tolerated by patients but the lack of an effective marker to predict pain prevents us from determining pre-procedurally which patient group needs local anesthesia for biopsy and probe pain. Thus in this study, we investigated predictor factors for prostate biopsy and probe insertion pain. MATERIALS AND METHODS: 71 patients who were undergoing prostate biopsy without anesthesia were included in the study retrospectively. Pain had been assessed with visual analogue scale (VAS 0-10). Digital rectal examination (DRE) pain was analyzed for biopsy and probe insertion pain. RESULTS: DRE pain was related to both probe pain and biopsy pain. CONCLUSION: Although level of pain during DRE determines patients in need of local anesthesia, since the number of patients with moderate-severe pain is rather big, it seems efficient in determining the patients in need of additional anesthesia due to probe pain.