Prostate Biopsies at UChicago: NOT "At the Forefront of Medicine"

Dear Patch Readers,

Here is my open letter to the Vice President of UChicago Biology and Medicine on an important health issue ... prostate cancer and the newly improved and less invasive ways to detect it. -Sid :

From: Sid Colton <s220@uchicago.edu>
Date: Fri, Oct 11, 2019 at 8:56 AM
Subject: Hyde Park campus needs to offer transperineal prostate biopsy, starting within a couple months
To: Kenneth Polonsky - Executive Vice President of the University for Biology and Medicine <polonsky@bsd.uchicago.edu>

Friday October 11, 2019

Dear Dr Polonsky,

I have 4mm x 5mm lesion on my prostate, as determined by UofC's MRi test of early August 2019. [ ...]

The next step for me is for the UofC to GET TO THE FOREFRONT OF MEDICINE and start offering the new "transperineal prostate biopsy". It is the only biopsy now that makes medical sense: It reduced the infection rate compared to the current standard biopsy procedure via the anal canal, by an almost infinite factor ... from about 3% nationally, to less than 0.05% nationally, based on what my doctor said yesterday during my appointment with him ... and based on my reading today.

I have lived in Hyde Park 50 years. I have had close to 100% of my medical care from the UofC Clinics and Hospitals. It does not make sense for me to travel elsewhere ... Rockford Illinois; University of Illinois; Maywood Illinois ... to have the soon-to-be standard, outpatient, and far superior test in every way, to determine if my prostate-lesion is cancerous or not.

I hope to hear from you right away that your are directing UChicago Medicine to begin offering within the next few months, this transperineal prostate biopsy outpatient procedure, so that the many many men, including me, who need this procedure now, can get this test At the Forefront of Medicine here in Hyde Park.

Otherwise ... UofC Medicine can not say it is At The Forefront of Medicine for prostate cancer detection!

Thank you for removing this extremely important deficiency from what is offered at UChicago Medicine, Hyde Park campus!

Sincerely,
Sidney Colton
Patch Mayor for the Hyde Park Patch

Corresponding medical articles:

https://grandroundsinurology.com/it-is-time-to-abandon-transrectal-prostate-biopsy-for-perineal-biopsy/

renalandurologynews.com/home/news/urology/prostate-cancer/structured-investigation-of-outpatient-transperineal-prostate-biopsy/