High-grade prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia on needle biopsy: risk of cancer on repeat biopsy related to number of involved cores and morphologic pattern.

The importance of isolated high-grade prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia (HGPIN) on needle biopsy is its association with synchronous invasive carcinoma. The relevance of this relationship has been called into question in recent years. In our study, we examined whether the histologic subtype of HGPIN (ie, tufting, micropapillary, cribriform, flat) and/or the number of core biopsies involved by HGPIN was predictive of a subset of men who were at higher risk of having invasive carcinoma on follow-up biopsies. We examined 200 sets of needle biopsies with a diagnosis of isolated HGPIN. Patient age ranged from 46 to 90 years (mean 66.4 years). The breakdown of the histologic subtypes of HGPIN is as follows: tufting 59%, micropapillary 34.3%, cribriform 6.2%, and flat 0.5%. A total of 132 patients (66%) had follow-up biopsies. Prostatic adenocarcinoma was identified in 28.8% of patients with 89.5% of cancers identified on the first two follow-up biopsies. For men that had two or more cores with HGPIN on the initial biopsy, 35.9% eventually had cancer on follow-up whereas men with only single core involvement had cancer in 22% of cases. Men with tufting/flat HGPIN on the initial biopsy had cancer on follow-up in 31.9% of cases, whereas the micropapillary/cribriform subtype was associated with cancer in 22% of follow-up biopsies. The histologic findings on the first repeat biopsy can be quite informative as to the risk of synchronous invasive carcinoma. Of the men with HGPIN on the first repeat biopsy, 32% eventually had cancer on follow-up. Additionally, if multiple cores were involved by HGPIN on the first repeat biopsy, the risk of finding cancer was 50%, regardless of single or multiple core involvement on the initial biopsy. Men with a benign diagnosis on the first repeat biopsy had a 14% risk of having cancer on follow-up. These data indicate that the multiple core involvement by HGPIN, both on initial and first repeat biopsy, defines a subset of men that are at increased risk of harboring synchronous invasive carcinoma. The histologic subtype of PIN does not appear to be as informative.