Back in January, Ezra started as a prostate cancer screening company; we scanned our clients’ prostates for lesions using MRI technology in the hopes of helping them avoid unnecessary, invasive biopsies. Doctors will often recommend patients evaluate their risk of prostate cancer using a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood test, which was found to be only about 21 percent accurate in a 2012 review. On the other hand, using MRI to scan the prostate can detect over 90% of prostate cancers, according to a January 2017 study. This inspired us to use MRI technology to screen for prostate cancer.
And though Ezra has expanded to offer full-body MRI screening services to give you a holistic view of your body, we still proudly offer packages that only screen for prostate cancer as well.
A new study that will be published in next month’s American Journal of Roentgenology reaffirms that Ezra’s approach when it comes to prostate cancer screening is a safe and wise one. The study concluded that biopsies guided by MRI are able to outperform another common diagnostic method, known as transrectal ultrasound (TRUS)-guided biopsies, by a long shot. Furthermore, over 70% of the study’s patients also received a novel or upgraded prostate cancer diagnosis, and 60% continued on to receive treatment.
Perhaps the most notable finding of the study, however, is that the MRI-guided biopsies were able to detect cancer in ⅔ of patients who previously received negative results in at least one TRUS-guided procedure. In other words, they had previously been told they were prostate cancer-free when they actually did have the disease. The retrospective study analyzed 127 patients between the ages of 63 and 73, who had a mean age of 68.
“These findings provide reassurance that the use of this complex and expensive technology frequently leads to significant and management-changing biopsy results in actual clinical practice,” wrote the team, who is based in Portland, Oregon’s Health & Science University.
