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The rate of complications following prostate biopsy is relevant to the balance of benefits and harms from prostate cancer screening. Johns Hopkins urologists determined 30-day hospitalization rates after prostate biopsy in a random national sample of 17,000 Medicare participants who underwent biopsy procedures between 1991 and 2007.
The 30-day hospitalization rate of 6.9% was significantly higher than the 2.9% rate among 135,000 randomly selected controls of similar age (for controls, a 30-day period was selected randomly). Exclusion of men with diagnosed prostate cancer — who might have been hospitalized for cancer treatment after positive biopsies — yielded a similarly elevated relative risk for hospitalization. Men in the biopsy group wer…