Preparing for Your Prostate Biopsy
To prepare you for the test, your urologist should tell you about the risks and benefits of having a biopsy. The most common complications following a prostate biopsy are having blood in the urine, rectum, or semen, a urinary tract infection, and acute urinary retention. These side effects usually pass quickly. Less commonly, erectile dysfunction occurs.
After this discussion with your doctor, you will be asked to sign a consent form. You may also be asked to discontinue some medications, such as anticoagulants, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, herbal supplements, and vitamins, for one to several days. On the night before the biopsy is scheduled, your doctor may ask you to do an enema at home. Eating lightly the day before is often recommended. You also may be asked to take an antibiotic the day before or on the day of the biopsy.
When you come in for the procedure, you will be asked to lie still on your side with your knees bent. The doctor will insert a small finger-sized ultrasound probe into your rectum. The probe lets the doctor see images of your prostate gland and helps determine where to inject a local anesthetic. The images the doctor sees also help guide the biopsy needle. Your doctor will take 10 to 18 tiny tissue samples from the prostate gland, which will then be sent to a pathology lab. The entire procedure takes about 10 minutes. Your doctor will contact you with results usually within about a week.
After the procedure, your rectum may feel sore. You may see small amounts of blood in your stool, urine, or semen that last for several days or weeks. Antibiotics might be prescribed for several days to prevent infection.
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